It has further raised funding from Inflection Point Ventures, Beyond ventures, and others. This month, Draper himself flew down to Bhubaneswar to launch BonV Aero’s new autonomous logistics drone platform Air Orca.
The startup owes its success partly to the government-run IT promotion agency Software Technology Parks of India (STPI). It was incubated under STPI’s startup acceleration programme Leap Ahead.
“STPI’s mentoring and grooming, by real industry veterans, helped us pitch effectively on Meet the Drapers,” Satapathy said.
Set up in 1991 – right around the time of the economic liberalisation – STPI played a pivotal role in the growth of the country’s private software services industry by promoting Indian software companies and providing the then fledgling sector with key workspace and infrastructure support.
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More than 30 years later, the IT industry has crossed $250 billion in revenues and exports account for about 2.3% of the country’s GDP (as of FY23). And given the sector is no more solely dependent on STPI for support, the organisation has shifted its attention and resources towards a new challenge — democratising technology innovation and entrepreneurship by supporting technology startups functioning outside of established hubs such as Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad.Also Read: Indian tech industry to grow slower at 3.8%, crosses $250 billion: Nasscom
“At STPI, our focus is centred on democratising entrepreneurship, especially in tier-2 and tier-3 cities where untapped potential and innovation thrive,” said Arvind Kumar, director general of STPI. “India’s growth story is not limited to its metropolitan hubs, but it extends to the grassroots where incredible ideas are emerging every day.”
STPI provides funding, mentorship, networking opportunities and global exposure to startup founders and companies across areas such as artificial intelligence, internet-of-things, health and agricultural technology, augmented and virtual reality and other emerging technologies.
The aim is to nurture, mentor and support the technology ecosystem in India with industry tie-ups and academic collaborations to bridge the gap between research and commercialisation, Kumar said.
These efforts are expected to help create the next generation of global startups and the technology product industry in India.
Take STPI’s Next Generation Incubation Scheme (NGIS), for example. It focuses on startups from nearly a dozen tier-2 towns and locations pan India. With a budgetary outlay of Rs 95 crore spread over three years, the target is to incentivise 300 select startups with seed funds of up to Rs 25 lakh in the fields of IT, IT-enabled services and electronics system design and manufacturing.
Similarly, Leap Ahead, started in November 2023, is meant to help early or growth-stage fintech, insure-tech, agritech, climate tech, drone tech, industry 4.0 and digital health startups scale their operations.
In the first cohort of the Leap Ahead programme, STPI and its partners selected 87 startups from 546 applications received from across 27 states. Of these, 22 attended a global connect programme with investors in Silicon Valley and have managed to get funding commitments of over Rs 55 crore.
Initiatives such as NGIS and Leap Ahead programme have become a launchpad for several startups to grow. Many of the startups selected under these programmes have gone on to secure additional venture capital investments.
Besides NGIS and Leap Ahead, STPI also has 24 industry-focused Centres of Entrepreneurship (CoEs) that incubate startups and connect them with industries to solve real-world problems.
Its MedTech CoE, housed at Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences in Lucknow, partners closely with the hospital, the Association of Indian Manufacturers of Medical Devices and others.
The hospital partnership helps in gauging key problems to be solved while also ensuring pilot testing of products that the startups build and collecting anonymised data, said Shyam Kumar, chief operating officer at the CoE.
Health tech startup Detrocel, for instance, has collaborated with the pulmonary department of the hospital to create an AI-based solution to detect lung diseases through an X-ray device and is currently seeking a licence for it.
Another startup, Medblue Innovations, has developed a product that can quickly detect bilirubin levels in newborn babies to diagnose jaundice that could be potentially lifesaving.
The CoE has onboarded 52 startups with a total valuation of about Rs 157 crore and has generated over Rs 2 crore in revenue so far. Nine of them have raised external funding to the tune of Rs 3 crore. The founders of these companies are from Lucknow, Noida, Ghaziabad and Mathura among other tier-II towns and cities.
“Many startup founders are good innovators, but they are not good businessmen,” Shyam Kumar said. “With our capacity-building programmes and mentoring support, we are trying to bridge this gap so that products can go to the market.”
Similarly, STPI’s Kalpataru Industry 4.0 CoE in Visakhapatnam aims to support 75 startups.
“Our CoE’s vision is to digitise PSUs (public sector units) as well as the industries in India by taking problem statements and catering to them through emerging, innovative startups,” said Chittaranjan Sethi, its COO. “The solutions can change the scenario of industrial automation in the country and also enable sustainable revenue and growth opportunities for startups.”
Startups incubated at the Kalpataru centre are eligible to receive a seed fund of up to Rs 4 lakh from STPI in addition to project development funds and close partnerships with PSUs like Hindustan Shipyard and Rashtriya Ispat Nigam, Sethi said.
Drone tech startup Rosys Virtual Solutions, for instance, is developing drone-based inspection solutions for structures in steel plants and is set to receive a funding commitment of Rs 12 lakh for project development.
Three startups are working on solutions around manufacturing, maintenance and repair in the field of shipbuilding, Sethi said.
Over 60% of applications to the CoE are from tier-2 and tier-3 cities like Vijayawada, Visakhapatnam, Guntur and Pune, he noted.
The funding aside, STPI CoEs connect the startups to industry leaders in a mentor-mentee relationship.
For instance, the Virtual and Augmented Reality CoE in Bhubaneswar counts Mindtree founder Subroto Bagchi as one of the mentors, while Anand Deshpande, chairman and managing director of Persistent Systems, is the chief mentor at Fasal, a CoE for IoT in agriculture at Akola.
The role STPI is now playing will help expand entrepreneurship and aspirations of the youth in various corners of the country, said Sunil Kumar Singh, CEO of Patna-based agritech startup Agri Direct, which was incubated by STPI.
The startup seeks to promote corporate farming and virtual farming by creating digital platforms that connect farmers with those interested in investing in farming, as well as making government farm subsidies more accessible.
“Innovation, which is key for startups, is in the DNA of every village in this country, which has had a tradition of frugal creativity,” Singh said. “All they need is the chance, the confidence and the support to solve the pain points they are able to identify in everyday life.”
