Women Startup Program to amplify their Entrepreneurial Skills (India)

NSRCEL’s Women Startup Program at IIM Bangalore, a CSR initiative by Kotak Mahindra Bank Limited, aims to support ambitious and innovative women entrepreneurs by enabling them to transform their idea into business ventures. First ideated in 2016, the Program is designed to focus on the enhancement of the entrepreneurial and managerial skills of women leading early and ideation stage ventures.

The program at NSRCEL begins with Foundations of Entrepreneurship (FOE), providing entrepreneurs with essential business knowledge. Selected candidates then progress through a hybrid pre-incubation program focused on prototype development and MVP design, followed by incubation for product development, scaling, and growth.

Stages in Focus

• Foundations of Entrepreneurship: FOE
  • A five-week course that provides participants with first-hand experience in entrepreneurial concepts and basics.
• Pre-Incubation: Prototype Stage
  • The Pre-Incubation phase of the Women Startup Program is a structured hybrid session, blend of both online and offline, for an intense 2 months for founders to refine their Problem Solution fit and provide founders with a greater understanding of customers and market.
• Incubation: Revenue Stage
  • The Incubation Phase of the Women Startup Program is a tailored 5 months program crafted to track the survival and sustainability of your venture. It offers specialized support and resources focussed on developing and subsequently scaling your products and prototypes, with a targeted emphasis on achieving a strong Problem-Solution fit.
• Accelerator: Advance Stage
  • The Accelerator Phase of the Women Startup Program is curated over 3 months and is aimed towards women entrepreneurs operating in Technology and on the way towards Product-Market fit. This stage will offer specialized support and resources to tackle the distinctive challenges and capitalize on the opportunities that women encounter in the industry.

Benefits

• Mentoring
  • Unparalleled access to their extensive mentor network including alumni, industry experts and VCs.
• Network
  • Connects to prospects for sales, business development and technology, as well as access to researchers and academicians shall be facilitated.
• Need Assessment
  • Focusing on area specific development of ventures and ecosystem mapping of their requirements.
• Grant Support
  • Access to grants of up to INR 3 Crores for selected ventures.
• Co-incubation with Partner Institutes
  • Founders get to Co-incubate with their Partner Institutes to enhance engagement and support startup growth across India.
• Legal and Compliance
  • Pro-Bono legal and company secretarial advice from their experts.
• Business Acceleration
  • Opportunities to showcase ventures periodically at startup events or exhibitions
• Milestone Tracking
  • Timely track of Milestones to track the venture’s progress
• Cohort-based Learning
  • Community-driven learning model promoting the potential of “women supporting women”.
• Sustenance and Scale
  • Guidance and Interventions aimed at helping startups across stages build roadmaps to ensure sustained growth.

Eligibility Criteria

• Eligible Applicants:
  • If one of the co-founders is a female and above the age of 18, and fully dedicated to the business and not employed in any capacity by any other company.
• They are sector agnostic and are open to startups in the idea, prototype and revenue stage from across the country.
• They accept applications from solo founders as well.
• Each applicant must apply with a single idea.

For more information, visit NSRCEL.