Incubation
B.Incube assists in incubating start-ups in Bilaspur The COVID-19 has affected the working of most of the sectors due to extended lockdown. Various start-ups that were able to navigate through this crisis primarily relied on three major factors Digitisation, Localisation, and Multi-sector collaboration. Bilaspur Incubation Center, which was set up by AIILSG with support from Bilaspur Smart City, continued functioning on this mandate, and launched a dedicated incubation program “START-UP INCUBATION PROGRAM COHORT - 2.0”, in which, they offered two incubation programs, Udayan and Aakar
T
he Udayan programme is a two-month intensive programme that mainly focuses on the ideation stage startups. Those startups that are working on a potentially innovative idea could be provided with mentoring, technical support, a strong network, and optionally a co-working space as well. The entrepreneur takes up the role of developing an idea into a Proof of Concept or an MVP (Minimum Viable Product). Once a marketable technology/ product/service/idea is evolved, a company can be formed around it and B.Incube could consider this startup for the Aakar programme. The Aakar programme will be 5 months intensive programme where startup companies who already have an MVP in place, improve their product/ service offering and prepare themselves with either the Go-To-Market strategy or to consistently grow their customer base. This programme enables the startup to be ready with an innovative idea in the form of a marketable product that can primarily drive the market, and which is easy to pitch before an investor/VC in the future. With this initiative, B.Incube received a huge response
Team AIILSG explaining the works of Bilaspur Incubation Centre to Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh Bhupesh Baghel
June 2022 www.aiilsg.org
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from several parts of the country with over 300+ startup applications. Post-examination of the applicants in the first round, about 150+ startup applications were invited for Pitch-deck (second round). After two rounds of scrutiny, 52 startup applicants have been selected for the Udayan & Aakar programmes which is initiated in the month of February 2022. Out of 52 total startup applicants about 38 techbased startups and 14 non-tech startups have been selected to operate in various sectors and fields such as e-commerce, environment sustainability, education, agriculture, and others. The team also built a string network of downstream investors, knowledge & network partners which will help incubatees in their journey. B.Incube also partnered with the Indian Institute of Technology, Bhilai. The selected startups could also avail the lab facilities available at IIT-Bhilai and make use of the dedicated cloud server set up by them. The startups will be provided with regular group mentoring sessions and programmes. B.Incube has industry-specific mentors with international exposure, domain experience, and connections in the area and level of business in which the startups usually operate. Based on the availability of our experts and mentors, individual startups could reach out to 4 mentors for oneon-one sessions every month. The fundamental idea of this programme is to enable innovative startups to transform their ideas into reality by providing a platform offering the resources and opportunities available with the Government, and non-government interventions. And, we trust that our competent in-house experts, capable startups, a team of skilled mentors, and backing from the government would boost the incubator’s capacity, allowing more startups to join and benefit from the programme in the future.
Project Update
