Microsoft underscores its commitment to the Indian startup

Tech giant Microsoft Monday said it was well poised to help startups embrace the next phase ofgrowth with its cutting-edge technology platform, M12, apartner organisation of Microsoft.

"The introduction of M12, Microsoft's venture fund in India is creating a new value for startups, venture capitals and the company itself to maintain the pace and direction of innovation," Microsoft India president Anant Maheshwari said.

He said the tech firm has been playing a vital role in shaping and nurturing the startup community in India and across the world.

"With our intelligent tech expertise, deep focus on trust and unique global go to market partnering, we empower unicorns and startups to scale sustainably at a global level. We remainexcited about India's entrepreneurial startup potential andwill continue to accelerate it as a growth engine for the economy," Maheshwari told reporters here.

The Microsoft India president said his company's partnerorganisation played a critical role in making startupsenterprise ready and has been evolving its approach from'partnering to partnership', where partners build solutions ontop of Microsoft's technology platform, adding value forcustomers, and creating new revenue opportunities.

The importance of Microsoft's role as the technology partner is to support and enable startups - prepare, market and sell, Maheshwari said.

Rashmi Gopinath, partner in M12, said her tech platform was looking at investing in innovators who have aligned theirfocus on cutting-edge technologies that better enable digitaltransformation.

She underlined that the Portfolio Development team at M12 is specifically built to help support and scale companies byleveraging the expansive resources of Microsoft.

Another platform, 'Microsoft for Startups' also aims athelping startups become enterprise ready.

It's country head Lathika Pai said 'Microsoft for Startups'opens doors for startups across the globe by leveragingMicrosoft's cloud marketplace, enterprise sales team, andrapidly growing partner ecosystem to reach customers globally.

"Under this initiative, the Microsoft ScaleUp programmesupports Seed or Series A funded B2B (and select B2C)tech-enabled startups to scale and be competitive," Pai said.

Through this programme, startups can co-sell with Microsoft sales teams, get access to top tech venture capitals in the global arena and mentorship from industry veterans, Paipointed out.

She added that in less than 18 months, Microsoft for Startups has closed more than 120 co-sell deals with more than USD 126 million in active pipeline for startups.