Oxigen’s founder, Pramod Saxena (an IIT Roorkee alumnus) is heading back to the startup world with the launch of a new startup accelerator,
Aarambh Ventures. The accelerator is expected to identify, support and grow startups in Technology / Mobile, Health, Agriculture, Clean Tech / Energy, IoT, AI, Big Data & Fin- Tech through a 16 weeks program and raise investment funds and provide a launchpad for scalable and global impact ideas.
“Aarambh seeks to help entrepreneurs drive sustainable economic growth and innovation and make Digital India real. Top management team at Oxigen, being its first set of mentors, will fuel the growth of Fin-tech startups at Aarambh Ventures. It will also further strengthen the Oxigen Wallet’s ability to innovate, while deepening its relationship with startups,” said Pramod Saxena, CMD, Oxigen Services.
Aarambh’s accelerator program is supported by several VCs, serial entrepreneurs, mentors, domain experts and industry veterans that include Unitus Seed Fund, Omnivore Partners, IvyCamp, LetsVenture, Design for Use and many more.
“Today, more & more startups keep cropping up that look and sound the same leading to an outbreak of 'me too startups'. They lack in original thinking and the vision of building companies through genuine innovation. Aarambh Ventures aims to bridge this gap and nurture entrepreneurship by working with startups, build real companies and create economic impact by leveraging innovative and affordable technologies” said Vivek Kaushik, CEO, Aarambh Ventures.
Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee and Aarambh Ventures have also signed a MoU to foster and promote the spirit of entrepreneurship among the students of IIT Roorkee. As part of this partnership, Aarambh Ventures will set up an Idea Lab and Accelerator at IIT Roorkee’s Roorkee & Greater NOIDA campuses respectively. Main objective of this partnership is to help students develop their ideas in ways that are customer-centered and market-relevant.
“They may have ideas that need a bit more work or are looking to bounce the idea off to experts. Either way, Idea Lab will provide ways to push their thinking further,” said Prof. Pradipta Banerji, Director, IIT Roorkee. “Our goal is to have 100 entrepreneurs coming out of this Idea Lab in next two years. We are extremely supportive of Aarmabh Ventures’ efforts to develop ideation space for IIT Roorkee’s budding entrepreneurs.”
The world-class facility at Idea Lab, opening in late 2016 at IIT Roorkee Campus, will provide a congenial environment to promote original thinking & collaborative infrastructure that is needed to succeed in the 21st century knowledge economy. Aarambh will soon invite applications for its #GotanIdea challenge. This challenge will give an opportunity to entrepreneurs, working on an innovative Idea, to get a chance for the acceleration at Aarambh ventures and to pitch for a seed investment of up to INR 25 lakhs. Aarambh has developed an in-house tech enabled capability, Startup Evaluation and Management System, for screening startups through defined set of selection criteria - idea, team, proof of concept, product roadmap, business scalability, day-to-day operations and so on.
