Microsoft Ventures accelerator program looks to reposition itself

To focus on mature startups that are brought in through reference from ecosystem partners

“We are seeing almost one new start-up incubator or accelerator being set up in the country every day,” joked a senior Nasscom official last month. The country already has over 80 incubators and accelerators, five of which have been set up by multinational companies, 25 are privately run and 50 are public incubators, including those run by universities and colleges.

Amid this explosion, Microsoft Ventures' accelerator programme, which has been around since 2012, has decided to reposition itself and be a true blue 'accelerator' than being just another incubator of technology ideas. Accordingly, for startups applying to the programme from its sixth batch, applications for which are currently open, entrepreneurs will need to produce a 'reference' from any stakeholder in the ecosystem that has been engaged with the company earlier. Additionally, Microsoft Ventures will only consider teams that have a ready offering and some traction with clients.

Interestingly, as many as 50 of the startups that have been part of Microsoft's accelerator programme in India so far were early stage companies, as against just 14 mature ones. Microsoft has so far run five batches in India.

“A year ago if you had looked at all of us, we all were operating in the same space where teams would be at an accelerator but would be getting incubated. That's not the way it works. Incubation is when an idea is taken towards building the first product, and acceleration is when you have built the first product and you have some customers, and then you try to grow 10 times,” said Ravi Narayan, director and Microsoft Ventures India.

“We clearly want to be only in the acceleration space and not in incubation space. Now we are making an even more concerted effort to look at only companies that are slightly in the later stages so that the kind of resources and mentoring that we can do has a lot more impact and meaning,” he added.

The 'reference' section in the application, Narayan said, had been added based on learnings from the previous batches and would ensure that there was no “incestuousness” in the ecosystem where the same companies keep going around different incubators/accelerators.

Microsoft Ventures would thus be engaging with several other incubators to string together partnerships for a “logical progression”.

According to Narayan, it would make best sense for his team to focus on 'slightly late stage' startup companies, as their expertise could be best utilised there.

“If the startup already has customers, our sales and marketing organisations will be very excited by them. If they have great traction and a product that has been out there for a couple of years, our product groups get very excited working with them. So it makes sense for us to focus on that space,” he said.