IIM-A's CIIE, Village Capital launch Acceleration Program for tech start-ups

The aforementioned deal is a partnership between 2 organisations with incredible track record of identifying, supporting, funding early-stage companies through power of peer support

The Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A)'s Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) along with Village Capital has launched its premier Acceleration Program for upcoming startups focused on technology for impact.

The CIIE-Village Capital Accelerator is a partnership between two organizations with an incredible track record of identifying, supporting and funding early-stage companies through the power of peer support. The accelerator program focuses on for-profit, commercially scalable Indian startups that display a high level of social value in their tech-driven or tech-enabled offerings. The accelerator will focus on technology ventures operating in the mobile/ICT, health, agribusiness, education, sustainability and livelihood solutions verticals.

"CIIE has been supporting some of the leading social ventures in India, and this partnership with Village Capital will help us identify and help innovative Indian startups in the technology for development space. This is one of the several initiatives we plan to introduce in the near future to co-create the next generation of social enterprises," explained Shashank Rastogi, Director of Operations at CIIE.

The program places a heavy emphasis on peer-mentoring and peer-selection of the best ventures within the program. Throughout the program, participating entrepreneurs assess one another, with the two top-ranked startups receiving up to $50,000 USD (Rs  27 lakhs roughly) each in investment.

The program starts April 11, 2013 with the first of three four-day workshops being held at CIIE's facilities within IIM Ahmedabad campus. The program will comprise two additional intensive four-day sessions in May and June.

Ongoing online collaboration, meetings and presentations with expert mentors, investors and sector practitioners will provide additional real-time feedback. Participants would also get an opportunity to pitch to leading Indian venture capitalists (VCs) and international investors at the end of the program.

Identifying the best early-stage startups for investment is a difficult and cost-intensive process for investors. Inspired by the “Village model” of microfinance, the Village Capital solution is to harness the power of peer support and mentoring to build investment-ready companies and to allocate capital through peer selection.

"In our experience of launching 16 Village Capital programs across 5 continents —from China to Brazil to India to Kenya to Atlanta— teams universally engage in the process in an astoundingly collegial and disciplined way," said Ross Baird, Executive Director of Village Capital.