AGRI UDAAN Scheme for Agriculture Startups Launched

NITI Aayog Member Ramesh Chand inaugurated 'Agri Udaan Food & Agribusiness Accelerator 2.0', a programme to promote innovation and entrepreneurship in agriculture.

Managed by India’s premier farm research body, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), the programme will help to selected innovative startups who will be mentored in to scale up their operations in agri value chain for effective improvement in agriculture.

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.

Accelerators are 4-8 month program aiming at scaling up innovative startups with a working prototype and initial market traction. This is done through education, mentorship, and financing. Startups enter accelerators for a fixed-period of time, and as part of a cohort.

The cohort is shortlisted by evaluation panel comprising of industry veterans, business experts, R&D scientists.  Four distinct factors that make accelerators unique are fixed term, cohort based, mentorship driven and they culminate into demo day.

Through AGRI UDAAN we will be reaching out to agri-startups across the country with a series of road shows in Chandigarh, Ahmedabad, Pune, Bangalore, Kolkata & Hyderabad.

The application is available at www.aidea.naarm.org.in.

Applications will be evaluated 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 on 9th and 10th of October 2017 at NAARM.  Out of these about 8 to 12 startups will be selected for final cohort for capacity building workshop