NAARM, IIM-A to launch agri starup incubator programme, AGRI UDAAN

ICAR-National Academy of Agricultural Research Management (NAARM) Technology Business Incubator (TBI) a-IDEA (Association for Innovation Development of Entrepreneurship in Agriculture) and Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad’s (IIM-A) incubator Center for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) today announced AGRI UDAAN- Food and Agribusiness Accelerator 2.0. 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 programme in which shortlisted agri startups with promising innovative business models will be mentored and guided to scale up their operations.

Accelerators are 4-8 month programme 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 and R&D scientists. Four distinct factors that make accelerators unique are fixed term, cohort based, mentorship driven and they culminate into demo day.

Forthcoming Food & Agribusiness accelerator: AGRI UDAAN
Looking at the impact created through NAARM TBI a-IDEA, India’s first Food and Agribusiness accelerator 2015 in partnership with IIM-A CIIE, National Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board (NSTEDB), Department of Science & Technology (DST) has come forward to support AGRI UDAAN – an initiative for upliftment of agri startups.

“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 and Hyderabad,” a statement released by Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare said today. The initiative is backed by Caspian Impact Investments as Platinum Partner, Yes Bank as Banking Partner, NCDEX eMarkets Ltd (NeML) and Marico Innovation Foundation as Silver partners. AGRI UDAAN also received support from National Research Development Corporation (NRDC), Agrinnovate as tech transfer partners, and FICCI as outreach partner.

Selection process
The application is available at NAARM website. Applications will be evaluated by mentors from industry, business and partner organisations, based on the average scores top 40 startups will be shortlisted and allowed to pitch in front of panel of evaluators during cohort finalisation 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.
 
Mentoring and acceleration
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 commercialisation, product validation, business plan preparation, risk analysis, customer engagement, finance management, fund raising etc. There will be a match making between startup-mentor. The accelerator programme will culminate with demo day/ investors meet at Hyderabad and Mumbai.

Agri-Udaan Schedule