Source: financialexpress.com
Google’s platform — Google Developers Launchpad to help startups grow will now support social impact startups in India. The platform has partnered with startup accelerator Social Alpha to help such startups with mentorship, tools, and methodologies for growing businesses. The tie-up will help the incubator develop learning programmes for startups based on information from a select group of world’s leading accelerators, it said even as Social Alpha will also gain access to Google’s network and its experience in helping startups globally.
Social Alpha, which is supported by Tata Trusts claimed to be the first Indian accelerator to partner with the Google Developers Launchpad and become part of a network of independent accelerators across Latin America, Africa, Europe, and Asia. Google will not take equity in startups supported by this initiative.
“Google Developers Launchpad doesn’t take an equity stake in accelerator portfolio start-ups, but instead focuses on developing companies and their ecosystems over the long term,” said Kevin O’Toole, Head of International Growth for Launchpad, Google.
The startups in focus would be those having deep technologies including artificial intelligence and machine learning in their model to help them scale given the low resources they have along with customers who often are not able to afford their services.
Google and Social Alpha will also look for ways in which resources can be identified to offer customized support to startups with respect to the sector they operate in.
The tie-up with Google with help Social Alpha in providing “access to world-class technologies especially in the areas of data science and machine learning,” said Manoj Kumar, Founder and CEO, Social Alpha.
Google recently announced names of startups to participate in its third batch of three-month acceleration programme — Google Launchpad Accelerator. The accelerator was launched in 2018 in India to offer support including cloud, UX, Android, web, product strategy and marketing, focusing on building AI and ML capabilities.
