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Welcome to

SAMRIDH
AcceleratHER
Program

SAMRIDH AcceleratHER is a personalised and intensive acceleration program that catalyses women-led technology startups to grow, prepares them for raising funds and facilitates investments.

The program is hosted by Zone Startups India in partnership with EntrepreNaari and is supported by the MeitY Startup Hub, Government of India under the SAMRIDH Scheme. The scheme provides a matching funding upto a maximum of INR 40 Lakhs per startup as a co-investment along with other investors in the same round.

About the SAMRIDH Scheme

Startup Accelerators of MeitY for Product Innovation, Development and Growth (SAMRIDH) is a scheme designed by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Government of India to support accelerator programs as they select IT-based startups and help them scale and grow to create positive impact in India.

About EntrepreNaari

EntrepreNaari is a community by the gender diversity movement, Aspire For Her, and Navya Nanda’s Project Naveli. It is created to support and enable existing and aspiring women entrepreneurs in India. It offers resources, mentorship, connections, investment opportunities and support to its community of 10K+ members.

About Zone EntrepreNaari Network (ZEN)

ZEN is an engaged and growing community of women entrepreneurs, which is being jointly curated by Zone Startups India and EntrepreNaari. It provides continuous opportunities for learning, finding peer support, mentorship and more.

Join the SAMRIDH AcceleratHER cohort to achieve investor readiness, get connected to investors as well as enjoy investment facilitation of upto INR 40 lakhs from MeitY Startup Hub as a matching scale co-investment alongwith the amount raised from other investors in the round.

Must have customer/market
validated products/solutions (TRL 8+)
Preferably at an early
revenue stage
Intensive acceleration
sessions conducted over 14 weeks
Sector
agnostic
Cohort of 5 startups
Fully
virtual

What do you get when you join?

30+ hours of mentoring

Learn from industry experts through group sessions as well as 1-on-1 coaching sessions

Pitch preparation training

Get focussed help to train for investor meetings with coaching, mock pitch sessions and more

Fund-raising support

Get personalised support in being ready to negotiate funding transactions and learn all about the nuances of the process

Investor connections and facilitation for investments

Pitch to the MeitY and MeitY Startup Hub investment teams and other investors to close your funding round

Upto USD 100K in additional offers as credits and discounts

Receive exclusive business support products, services and solutions of upto USD 100K, thanks to our partners

Ongoing peer support

Enjoy continued networking opportunities with your cohort peers and get access to the ZEN community too

Are you eligible?

See if you meet these criteria to qualify for this opportunity:

  • Your entity must be registered in India as a Private Limited Company.
  • At least one of the founders should be a woman.
    • Women founder’s/co-founder’s/shareholder’s stake must be >= 33% (cumulatively)
    • There should be women at the CXO level (preferably as a CEO/COO)
  • Yours must be a technology-based startup, preferably registered with DPIIT, Government of India.
  • You must have customer/market validated products or solutions and you must be at an early revenue stage with paying customers (TRL8+ level).
  • You must be seeking to raise seed funding from investors including institutions.

How do you
get in?

Interested to be a part of this?
Here’s a look at our selection process.

Round 1 :  Application Pre-Screening

Submit your application before the deadline. We will then conduct a basic screening process to check whether you are eligible and whether your application is complete.

If you make it through to this round, we will evaluate you on factors like:

  • Your team’s strength
  • Product proposition and differentiation
  • Your business and revenue model
  • Market opportunity

If you get to this round, you will undergo a detailed screening process where you will be called for 1-on-1 interviews by a jury panel. You will be evaluated based on factors like

  • Investment readiness
  • Technology stack
  • Competitive strengths
  • Financial projections

If shortlisted, you will be called to pitch to a panel of eminent jury. The top 5 applicants will be selected to form the cohort.

The program agenda

This program will be conducted virtually across 14 weeks. Here’s a glimpse of what you can expect.

Week 1 - 12

This phase will include group sessions and 1-on-1 sessions conducted by industry experts. The sessions will cover the following areas:

  • Expectation-mapping
  • Technology stack/ Product-solution Development
  • Product-Market Fitment
  • GTM including Sales and Marketing
  • Financial Modelling and Valuation
  • Funding Readiness Preparation and Investor Pitch Coaching
  • Investor Connections (mainly 1-0-1)

Virtual Demo day will also be organised Where you will pitch to a group of investors and also showcase your solutions to prospective clients and other attendees.

Week 13 - 14

In this stage, 1-on-1 follow-up meetings between the startups and investors including the investment team at MeitY Startup Hub will be facilitated. Required hand-holding and coordination will be done with the aim of helping the startups in completing the fund-raising process.

Important dates:

August 1, 2022

Program Launch – Inviting applications

August 22, 2022

Open-door Networking Event at Zone Startups India for prospective applicants

August 26, 2022

Application deadline

September 8, 2022

Announcement of Selected Applicants for Round 3 (Enhanced screening)

September 16, 2022

Virtual Pitch for Final Selection

September 20, 2022

Announcement of results (Final cohort of 5 startups)

September 21, 2022

Commencement of the virtual acceleration sessions comprising
intensive training and mentoring post expectation/mentor mapping

December 20, 2022

Virtual Demo Day Event

December 21-31, 2022

Investment facilitation and investment process management

Program Terms and Conditions

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