GFID INDIA SCALEUP STARTUP PROGRAM

A startup is a young company founded by one or more entrepreneurs to develop a unique product or service and bring it to market. By its nature, the typical startup tends to be a shoestring operation, with initial funding from the founders or their friends and families.

StartUps

Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) is a leading global financial services firm providing investment banking, securities, wealth management and investment management services. With offices in more than 43 countries, the Firm’s employees serve clients worldwide

KPMG is a global network of professional firms providing Audit, Tax, and Advisory services. We operate in 144 countries and have more than 137,000 professionals, including 7,600 partners, working in member firms around the world. The independent member firms of the

Cushman & Wakefield is a global commercial real estate services company. The company’s global headquarters is located in Chicago, with regional headquarters in New Delhi (Asia), New York (Americas), London (EMEA), and Sydney (APAC). Cushman & Wakefield is among

EMC is the world leader in products, services, and solutions for information storage and management. EMC helps customers of all sizes in all industries manage their growing information—from the time of its creation to its archival and eventual disposal—through information

At Foley Hoag, we offer services which respond to the needs of our clients, in the context of the client’s business, designed to provide solutions to the problems in question. Our commitment is to devote our best efforts to help our clients reach the objectives they have set

IBM is a global technology and innovation company. It is the largest technology and consulting employer in the world, with more than 400,000 employees serving clients in 170 countries. IBM offers a wide range of technology and consulting services

Latham & Watkins’ Emerging Companies group provides strategic business and legal advice to companies in the technology, life science and cleantech industries, as well as to the financial institutions that support them. Our services span the entire growth cycle of a

WilmerHale’s Emerging Company Practice has helped thousands of entrepreneurs successfully launch their businesses; raise billionts in angel, venture and strategic financing; and take their companies to sale, IPO and market leadership. We have a longstanding

i2k2 Networks is a global data center, hosting and technology services company based out of Noida, India. With a presence in complete globe, we help businesses transform their IT infrastructure. Our innovative approach ensures that the growth of the customer

India is an entrepreneurial country, but its entrepreneurs have had to struggle to create and grow their business ventures. There is, however, a growing group of first-generation Indian entrepreneurs – the founders of companies such as HCL, Cognizant, Infosys, Tatas, Bharti, and others – that have generated large scale employment and significant wealth. They and others such as Makemytrip, CLEducate, Indiamart, and Naukri have also demonstrated value creation through a public listing. India is home to 30 Unicorns (privately held companies with a valuation of $1b+). These successes have encouraged a new breed of entrepreneurs especially in the technology, technology-enabled, internet, and e-commerce domains.

India’s entrepreneurial growth can be accelerated by creating more conducive conditions – a catalytic environment, adequate capital flows (both debt and equity), support from businesses and society, and availability of appropriate skills, talent, and mentoring.

COVID-19 has posed to all countries, societies, start-ups, and individuals an unprecedented, extraordinary situation that has global repercussions on the economy and lives of several millions of people. Each founder is faced with making decisions that need to be immediate but at the same time thought through keeping in mind – health & safety of their employees, working from home, engaging with customers, looking at cash flow and burn, rejigging forecasts, setting expectations with their investors, fundraising, supply chain/logistics and above all their individual mental health and fortitude through these times.

Entrepreneurs, particularly, startups require more than financial resources to convert high-impact ideas into successful enterprises. In doing so, one of the biggest barriers is access to timely, quality, and tailored support in a flexible, yet structured, manner. The COVID-19 pandemic has had a severe impact on start-ups with many of these challenges becoming more pronounced than ever.

Objective: GFID INDIA in partnership with FCDO, Govt of UK aims to rebuild/strengthen the start-up ecosystem post the COVID 19 world. It aims to assist start-ups to respond to the challenge and scale-up in an inclusive, sustainable, and responsible manner.

Through a series of coordinated interventions, the partnership will focus on the following key pillars:

• Thought Leadership and Networking
• Mentoring and Capacity Building
• Fostering Innovation and learning
• Driving policy reform

The activities proposed under this partnership – e.g. hackathons, start-up mentorship and capacity building, policy advocacy will focus on enabling start-ups to cope and survive with the new challenge. In addition, the activities will also aim to create awareness and solutions to some of the long-faced challenges in the start-up industry – e.g. promoting women entrepreneurship, fostering innovation, and building more responsible and sustainable businesses.

The partnership aims to mobilize more investments in start-ups (including for women entrepreneurs), promote more inclusive and resilient business models; augment mentoring support, encourage markets in underserved geographies, and facilitate more enabling policies and regulations. It will identify sectors that have been more severely impacted, for focused deep dive support through the above pillars.