India’s National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) has received an overwhelming response to its start up funding program.
No less than 14,000 wannabe entrepreneurs registered. In all about 4,000 applications were received for funding. Early stage funding is typically called ‘angel funding’.
Out of the total applications received, close to 23 per cent of the applicants were from Bangalore, closely followed by 20 per cent applicants from Delhi NCR. Another interesting trend that came into light was that one in every five application was filed from smaller towns.
The entrepreneurship culture is strongest in western India, and decreases as one moves towards the eastern parts of the country.
Over 70 per cent applications came from applicants under the age of 30 and about 15% applicants were women.
About 25 per cent startups aimed at providing solutions pertaining to education and skill development. The retail vertical had 18 per cent applications followed by media (15 per cent) and healthcare (11 per cent). From a technology point of view, a whopping 66 per cent of the applications came for web/internet startups, followed by mobile start-ups occupying a share of 24 per cent. Applications from Cloud and Big Data were at 16 per cent and 11 per cent respectively.
“We will now select about 20-25 startups for Angel Funding and Incubation.” He further added, “Through a comprehensive evaluation process carried out by our partners, we will also select about 150 startups which would undergo rigorous mentoring by our members, program partners and other industry partners,” said Som Mittal, President, NASSCOM.
Nasscom has typically focused on outsourcing. But as the country tries to move up the ‘value chain’ into software products and innovative services and offerings, the association is trying to encourage a start up culture.
NASSCOM had started inviting applications for the 10,000 Startups program on April 5th 2013 and closed applications on 30th May 2013.
NASSCOM had commenced the ‘10,000 Start-ups’ program with the support of Google, Kotak, Microsoft and Verisign.