Bengaluru 10th October 2019: Turbostart, a national programme that will identify and nurture the top 10 innovative startups, every 6 months, was launched by Bengaluru-based InnovationQore in the city today. Turbostart will facilitate the discovery of innovative early-stage startups, invest in them and help them with product and market validation, instant funding, industry connects and all customary business support. The programme is open to all Indian startups and is run in a competition format. It is a pan India sector-agnostic programme that will eventually be extended to a few overseas geographies as well. Turbostart has entrepreneurs and business leaders onboard as investors along with a seasoned management team working full-time to assist the startups.
In order to be considered eligible for the Turbostart programme, a startup should have been incorporated for a period of less than 10 years with a minimum viable product or proof of concept. The startup should be working towards innovation and development or improvement of products or processes or services with a scalable business model.
“Our vision is to build a strong startup ecosystem by creating a clear path of success for the entrepreneurs and eliminating the tedious task of dealing with market hurdles and non-core activities. Our plan is to fund 20 startups per year in two seasons – January and June. The intent is to accelerate the growth of at least 100 startups over a period of five years We have raised around 50 crores already with additional commitments from investors on a need basis.” said Ganesh Raju, Founder and CEO, InnovationQore.
Turbostart is one-of-its-kind as it brings together all units of the startup ecosystem to enable seamless growth for the startups. This is achieved through a comprehensive startup-industry-academia framework.
“Selected startups will be funded up to Rupees Two Crores per startup. Based on their business plans and funding requirements, it may be provided upfront or in tranches and we have a very flexible mandate from the investors. In addition to funding, we will provide startups with assistance in product positioning, human resource management, brand and digital strategy along with marketing and sales. We will help in creation or evaluation of business models to capture and enhance value. We will also provide assistance in determining appropriate legal/operating structure in India and overseas, and manage strategic and tactical issues related to capital. For a period of 12 months, startups in the cohort will also receive support services such as legal and regulatory services, tax planning, accounting and financial reporting, compliance services and anything else that occupies considerable mind space of the founder. We will tie-up with other incubators, accelerators etc. As a first step, we have tied up with Atria University wherein they will provide working space for the startups.” he said.
Turbostart will complement all existing incubators and accelerators. “As a matter of fact, our teams would be visiting all the incubators and accelerators to create awareness about Turbostart and the benefits of their cohorts being part of Turbostart. We hope to attract quality startups from Tier-II and Tier-III cities as well.” Ganesh added.
Turbostart is the brainchild of Ganesh Raju. In his previous role, he headed the Entrepreneurial and Private Business practice at PwC India, where he conceptualised and ran a national level programme (LevelNXT) for startups looking to scaleup. This was done in association with FICCI and CNBC-TV18. He also was part of the Elevate programme organised by the Government of Karnataka for the first two editions. In the last four years, Ganesh has advised more than 300 startups and is deeply connected to the business ecosystem.
