Overview
COEP’s Bhau incubator is in the process of developing robust relationships with other incubators and accelerators in India and abroad. These relationships are of mutual benefit and are critical as they enable cross-border collaboration for start-up creation, a major initiative of Bhau incubator. By collaborating with other ecosystem partners, Bhau institute will be able to provide greater value for the incubatee companies. Innovation happens in collaboration and therefore the Bhau leadership is utilizing its international experience, expertise, and relationships to “locally integrate and globally connect” the start-up ecosystem.
Industry Partnership
COEP’s Bhau institute will work closely with industry partners to become the incubation center for these corporate partners for the innovation initiative that these companies want to support in the specified domains. In this manner, the industry will be able to leverage Bhau resources to support the development of innovation that fall outside the main stream corporate innovation pipeline within their organization.
The incubator will offer custom corporate incubation programs to meet the needs of the corporate sector. Companies are interested in using the incubator
- As external innovation and start-up creation zone, where some of their technologies are spun out into companies
- As source of start-ups that can be evaluated for acquisition
- As a platform where corporates can use their CSR funds to help support the creation and funding of start-ups that are focused on solving social problems in the areas of education, rural development, women entrepreneurship, etc.
As a platform where corporates can use their CSR funds to help support the creation and funding of start-ups that are focused on solving social problems in the areas of education, rural development, women entrepreneurship, etc.
Investors
Strong emphasis is placed by the COEP’s Bhau incubator on ensuring that a large network of investors is cultivated that can potentially invest in start-ups being incubated at Bhau Institute.
These investors include High Net worth Individuals (HNI), Angel investors, venture capital funds, private equity investors. The network that Bhau institute is developing domestic pockets of capitals in areas such as Pune, Mumbai, Delhi NCR, Bangalore and foreign investors from US, in particular from Texas, Chicago, California and New York.
Mentors and Faculty
It is critical to have a large and high-quality mentor network to provide technical and business mentoring to incubatee companies. Subject matter experts, technologists, successful entrepreneurs and CEOs of companies from industries are becoming a part of our mentor network. The mentor network will be segmented into three dimensions:
- Geography – Pune, Maharashtra, India, and Foreign
- Industry expertise – IoT, Cyber Security, Healthcare Technologies, Grassroots Innovations, and others
- Functional expertise: finance, marketing, product development, operations management, strategy & business development, Intellectual Property, etc.
Government funding and Nidhi Incubator
Government and funding agencies play a critical role in the success of Bhau incubator as they are the source of legitimacy as well as well as grant funding and soft loans. Various government agencies such as DST, DeitY, MHRD, Atal Innovation Mission, Skill Development, Pune Smart City, Maharashtra State Innovation Council, Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC), and Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) are critical partners for Bhau incubator. Strong efforts are being made to inform and engage these agencies with Bhau incubator. Banks and funding agencies such as SIDBI, SIDBI Ventures, NABARD, Rajiv Gandhi Science and Technology Commission (RGSTC) are also critical funding partners for Bhau incubator and its incubatee companies.