SAP India & CIIE of IIM-A Announced the 2nd Edition of Startup Accelerator Program

SAP SE announced that the second edition of its Startup Accelerator Program in collaboration with the Center for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship (SAP-CIIE) at IIM-Ahmedabad, to mentor and build capacities of 30 startups by 2017.

The accelerator program aims at identifying investable regional start-ups, catalyzing participation of regional stakeholders including domain experts, angels and academics, to foster regional entrepreneurship ecosystem. Additionally, two other initiatives were also announced -  propelling over 200 up-and-coming youth entrepreneurs, and prospecting for three entrepreneurial individuals to become ‘Innovation Fellows’ at CIIE.

Launched in 2015, the SAP-CIIE Startup Accelerator Program is creating a pipeline of investable startups from the Gujarat region and providing them with mentorship opportunities. Besides Gujarat, the program aims to expand to Rajasthan and Pune.

“SAP believes in fostering sustainable economic environment through strengthening entrepreneurship ecosystem and in this context through our partnership with CIIE, we are creating and mentoring a pipeline of investable startups” said Dilipkumar Khandelwal, Managing Director, SAP Labs India.

“As CIIE increases its footprint in multiple regions, we are also developing depth in sectors like IoT, healthcare, agriculture, cleantech, water and enterprise tech. Our partnership with SAP allows us to tap into the enormous domain expertise that resides within the company - a support that is invaluable to startups”, said Kunal Upadhyay, CEI, CIIE.