In an attempt to promote innovation and entrepreneurship in agriculture, Government launched “AGRI UDAAN”- Food and Agribusiness Accelerator 2.0 programme in New Delhi on August 4, 2017. The program will be run by ICAR-NAARM Technology Business Incubator (TBI), a-IDEA and Indian Institute of Management Ahmadabad’s Center for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE).
About “AGRI UDAAN”- Food and Agribusiness Accelerator 2.0:
This is a 6 month program in which shortlisted agri startups with promising innovative business models will be mentored & guided to scale up their operations.
- The idea is to attract the youth from rural India and elsewhere, and train them so they can add value to the farmers produce.
- AGRI UDAAN will be reaching out to agri-startups across the country with a series of
road shows in Chandigarh, Ahmedabad, Pune, Bangalore, Kolkata & Hyderabad. - This initiative is backed by Caspian Impact Investments as Platinum Partner, Yes Bank as Banking Partner, NCDEX eMarkets Ltd (NeML) & Marico Innovation Foundation as Silver partners.
- AGRI UDAAN has also received support from National Research Development Corporation (NRDC), Agrinnovate as tech transfer partners, and FICCI as outreach partner.
road shows in Chandigarh, Ahmedabad, Pune, Bangalore, Kolkata & Hyderabad.Selection Process for “AGRI UDAAN”- Food and Agribusiness Accelerator 2.0:
Applications will be evaluated and given scores by mentors from industry, business and partner organizations.
- Based on the average scores, top 40 startups will be shortlisted and allowed to pitch in front of panel of evaluators during cohort finalization programme in October 2017.
- Out of these about 8 to 12 startups will be selected for final cohort for capacity building workshop.
Capacity Building Workshop post Selection:
Post selection, there will be a match making between startup-mentor.
- The shortlisted cohort of startups will undergo a capacity building (CB) workshop in ICAR-NAARM.
- During this period, the startups will be trained in different aspects of technology commercialization, product validation, business plan preparation, risk analysis, customer engagement, finance management, fund raising etc.
- The accelerator program will culminate with demo day/ investors meet in Hyderabad and Mumbai.
Important Abbreviations:
- ICAR: Indian Council of Agricultural Research
- NAARM: National Academy of Agricultural Research Management
- a-IDEA: Association for Innovation Development of Entrepreneurship in Agriculture
- NCDEX: National Commodity & Derivatives Exchange
- FICCI: Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry
