The best useful resource of all for enterprise founders and entrepreneurs is one another, believes Prayank Swaroop, a associate at enterprise capital agency Accel India. That’s the considering behind Accel Atoms, a funding and assist programme that goals to construct a group of entrepreneurs who can study from each other. Accel is right now unveiling the second cohort of start-ups it’s supporting via Atoms, taking the entire variety of companies locally to 24.
By way of Atoms, Accel invests $250,000 of non-dilutive capital in every enterprise supported, gives entry to a pool of mentors, and likewise runs a 100-day studying and improvement course for every founder. Above all, nevertheless, the initiative encourages companies to assist each other – each start-up within the Atoms programme can attain out to the remaining for assist with a particular problem or drawback, in addition to to different companies in Accel’s community; by pooling their data, they will advance extra shortly.
“First-time founders are getting youthful, and we see them asking the identical questions over and once more,” says Swaroop. “We’ve been investing in these companies for 10 years, however for founders, their questions are new to them.”
The fact of enterprise capital, says Swaroop, is that no agency might be all issues to all its investee corporations. Whereas Atoms organises a variety of instructing and studying periods for founders, in addition to offering entry to one-to-one mentoring assist, it can’t be available 24 hours a day. And in any case, corporations typically have points or questions they’re reluctant to lift with their funding backers. They typically really feel much more snug discussing challenges and alternatives with different start-ups going via the same journey.
There may be additionally a necessity, Swaroop believes, for communities that aren’t merely centered on attending to the subsequent funding spherical. “One of many issues we requested ourselves when establishing Atoms was whether or not we had been doing one thing totally different to the accelerators and incubators already on the market,” he says. “We felt these teams tended to be very centered on getting start-ups to the subsequent fund-raising, quite than offering assist with the a whole lot of questions that founders have about their enterprise every day.”
This isn’t to recommend fund-raising is unimportant. Swaroop factors out that the 24 companies within the two Atoms cohorts have raised $100 million between them in follow-on fund-raisings since becoming a member of the programme. The assist that companies get within the Atoms course of helps transfer them in the direction of Collection A and B rounds extra shortly and effectively, he argues.
Companies acquire entry to the Atoms programme by making use of immediately or via a referral from different enterprise capital funds and enterprise angels with which Accel works carefully. Accel is concentrated particularly on the know-how sector, although a broad vary of corporations fall inside that criterion.
The programme can be increasing geographically. Whereas the primary Atoms cohort was centered on Indian start-ups, this second spherical contains companies primarily based throughout 5 totally different jurisdictions. Accel was significantly eager to work with South-East Asian companies, the place the start-up setting is now gathering tempo. “There’s an actual alternative for entrepreneurs in these international locations to study from their friends in India, which is just a bit additional forward,” Swaroop provides.
The second cohort of Atoms additionally varies barely in that Accel hasn’t taken all the businesses on on the identical time. It has been including companies to the cohort over time, culminating in right now’s announcement of the completed complement (functions for the third cohort are actually open till the top of the 12 months). The ten companies supported are:
- BRIK: a business-to-business building material-focused aggregator reworking the best way small and mid-size contractors in Indonesia buy building supplies.
- DataBrain: an information platform enabling non-technical strategic groups to extract and analyse information successfully.
- DhiWise: a man-made intelligence-powered improvement device that permits builders to ship production-ready supply code 10 occasions’ quicker for every kind of apps.
- Dpanda: a decentralised platform enabling manufacturers to rework their internet presence into micro ecommerce platforms that permit their viewers to make an instantaneous buy on the level of curiosity.
- Fishlog: a business-to-business market and a community-driven ecosystem that goals to streamline the seafood provide chain throughout Indonesia.
- Gut Wellness Club: an initiative to heal gut-related issues naturally utilizing conventional meals and yoga.
- Mello: a discovery platform that permits individuals to seek out the most effective experiences round them.
- Ripik: a software-as-a-service synthetic intelligence and machine studying platform for manufacturing industries, aimed toward serving to the commercial sector to function its factories extra effectively and successfully.
- Upflowy: a no-code device that permits anybody to construct and optimise personalised kinds that generate extra and higher certified leads.
- Youshd: a efficiency engine harnessing the ability of shopper networks to assist direct-to-consumer manufacturers succeed.