Spark10’s accelerator program is designed to assist early-stage startups to become successful companies, achieve growth and visibility by providing them access to knowledge, resources and access to global mentors and investors.
Team BWDisrupt interacts with Atal Malviya, Founder & CEO, Spark10 and spoke to him
How different is Spark10 accelerator than other accelerators in India? How does spark10 add real value to startups?Spark10 is India’s first European Accelerator – it was conceptualized and started with the help of Jon Bradford and Paul Smith, to help Indian entrepreneurs. Spark10 has been designed based on the best practices of Techstars and Ignite, both leading accelerator programs in the west. Jon was MD of Techstars London and now he is heading John Bradfield Incubation Center in Cambridge UK. Paul Smith, Ex-CEO of Ignite, is heading Dubai future accelerator where he is helping Dubai government in creating sustainable technology startup ecosystem. Most of our mentors are from other countries where startups are growing and succeeding for many years.
While Indian startup system is still taking shape, we clearly bring global expertise to Indian startups. Our team, mentors and investors have many years of startup experience that add huge value to our startups. With the help of international mentors Startups learn the global perspective and make real accelerated progress.
Our first cohort startups are demonstrating success post accelerator program and their learning from global mentors. From the first cohort, Ornative has become all India winner of Shopclues’s Next Big E-preneur Award. Shopclues has committed to invest up to Rs. 60 lakhs in Ornativa. Another Startup Brisky, a nightlife discovery platform has won three steps to London challenge and its founders are going to Europe to meet other entrepreneurs and investors. Another notable name from the first cohort is Oh’Look. Oh’Look was challenged and pushed by Spark10 accelerator to validate and change their business model twice during the program and finally what they become is an innovative fashion service company for men, that lets them wear a different shirt every single day, from the top brands and latest trends. Recently Oh’Look was one of the finalist in The Vault (ETNOW) and Runners up in Haywards 500 Hauslay Ki Udaan (ABP News). Many others are closing next round of investment as of now.
So, their progress is clear evidence of the high-value Spark10’s global proven mentors and network add in the startups’ journey.
Why do startups need an accelerator? What roles specifically get filled with accelerators like spark10?There are many successful companies like Dropbox and AirBnB that have come out of startup accelerators before making a big mark. As the name suggests, Accelerators speed up the journey of a startup by fast validation, failing fast, market push and global connections. A good accelerator helps founders to challenge the assumptions, validate the market and make fast progress with the help of successful mentors ‘who have been there done that’. Founders have direct access to all these contacts who are passionate about making their startup a success.
In addition to that startups get funding when they join an accelerator. Spark10 gives Rs.10 lakhs for 8% equity when a startup joins the program. Spark10 also provide direct access to many internal and external investors with the help of internal and public demo days.
Different accelerators bring different value to the table but if anyone is joining the accelerator for the money – it will be a wrong choice. Spark10 is known for its global connections and its access to successful entrepreneurs, mentors and investors globally.
Why do you think so many startups fail? What’s missing in the Indian startup eco-system as per your understanding?Every startup operates in different markets, domain, geographies and sectors, it’s not advisable to generalize and measure success rate based on same grounds.
But still, there are some key aspects that may lead startups to fail – Not having a right team is the most important reason for a startup to fail in my opinion. Other reasons include, a product made in isolation, no market validation, unrealistic estimations, assumptions all around, not having access to investment, no support system etc.
Indian startups don’t always have access to right support system – mentors, advisors, investors. Also, perhaps because of our social structure, I feel founders are living with the big fear of failure and in that, they lose focus and try to do so many things to keep themselves busy (not necessarily productive) or to avoid failure.
But this just a start of the next era and I am very positive that as Indian eco-system will mature we will start to see more successes in future.
You are based in London, tell us how do investors sitting in developed economies are looking at India at this juncture?Interestingly, I had a meeting with an investor in Milton Keynes yesterday. He is willing to invest in Indian startups but he couldn’t find a simple process or framework to invest in Indian startups – we will be working with him closely in coming weeks and help him find good startups in the community to invest in the Spark10 startups.
I know few Indian companies that are doing very well in India – their names also seem like Indian (Hinglish). Even though founders are from India, they registered their company in the UK, as investors here are more comfortable in investing in UK legal entity.
This is a challenge as well as an opportunity for us – with Indian government working closely with startups and other counterparts – hopefully, this situation will be dealt quickly.
Spark10 is working on filling this gap and very soon, we will share the next big news with you in this regard by this New Year.
Where does Spark10 go from here?Spark10 is here to help Indian startups grow – we will be working with more startups in coming month. Our second cohort applications are on right now. We have expansion plan and we will be launching few interesting projects in startup space.
What are the sectors spark10 is focusing on in terms of investment trends? We add a lot of value in technology and tech-enable startups – we invest in them, work with them and make them grow. We are particularly looking for startups in spaces like big data analytics, robotics, machine learning, AR/VR, Games, Chat application, mobile payment, Healthcare etc.
