MAY 20199(most of these are from Jaipur); this chronicles a massive 1000 percent rise from aproximately a hundred startups logged in early 2014.One might ask, what have been the trigger and the turning point which has contributed to this change? Undoubtedly, there has been an entrepreneurial spirit to the city as part of it's heritage, but over the last few years a structured multilevel support system for startups in Jaipur has snowballed into positioning the city on this radar of ideation, execution and investments. This support has showered in from some of the major organisations -tirelessly working towards building Rajasthan as a startup hub - TiE Rajasthan, Rajasthan Angel Innovators' Network (RAIN), Startup Oasis, Atal Incubation Centre -BanasthaliVidyapith and state government led iSTART.The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) Rajasthan based out of Jaipur is one of the pioneers of the entrepreneurship movement in the state. Affiliated to Silicon Valley based TiE Global which has a vast network of 61 chapters in 14 countries across the globe, TiE Rajasthan has been `Fostering Entrepreneurship' in the state with vital support provided to startups in terms of Education, Mentoring, Networking, Incubation and Funding. TiE Smashup is the flagship event of TiE Rajasthan which in its 4 editions till date has been able to impact over 1000 startups by curating and connecting promising startups to leading investors of the country. It's inbuilt agenda helps budding startups interact with successful startup founders and learn from their experience. A pitch session ends the event on a high note- each time digging out the best of the startups from the local ecosystem. TiECon - another flagship event brings top entrepreneurs and thought leaders of the startup world to Jaipur- Needless to say it creates the vision, and leads by example.Apart from creating the platform for the investment, TiE Sprint has a major mandate on mentoring. It is a structured acceleration programme which imparts basics of starting up in classroom sessions followed by mentoring and demo day pitches. And while most of the enablers are working with early stage startups, TiE Rajasthan is penetrating to the school going students with it's yearlong programmes TiE Nxt and TiE Young Entrepreneurs (TYE). Over 450 school students have been mentored in classroom programmes under these two initiatives so far which culminate into a global TYE competition. Street Yum, a student startup mentored by TiE Rajasthan has been a winner of TYE global competition help in U.S. in the past. Rajasthan Angel Innovators' Network (RAIN) is the first and only network of angel investors in Rajasthan. Based out of Jaipur, RAIN is interested in investing in early stage businesses, which have a potential to create scale. The members of RAIN have had prior entrepreneurial and/or strong operational experience that they wish to bring to early stage businesses. So far, RAIN has invested in 14 companies and has seen one successful exit.Incorporated in 2014, Jaipur-based incubator Startup Oasis was setup by the joint initiative of RIICO and the CIIE at IIM Ahmedabad. Since then, it has been nurturing startups and strengthening the ecosystem further. Till date, the incubator has incubated 120+ startups and has trained more than 1,000 aspiring entrepreneurs.Atal Incubation Centre, Banasthali Vidyapith is among the first set of allottees for world class Atal Incuabtion Centres (AICs) proposed to be set up under Atal Innovation Mission scheme of NITI Aayog. AIC at Banasthali, a small town 76 km from Jaipur in the district of Tonk, is a one of it's kind Incubation Centre in India which is solely focusing on women led startups. It offers two programs, the 'WE Sprint'- a 6 months Accelerator Program for growth stage startups and 'WOMENPreneur', an 11 months Incubation Program for women startups of all stages. AIC provides support in form of - Business Modelling, Financial Modelling, Technical/Legal & Taxation support, Business Networking & Business Development support, Access to Funding, etc,.It started in 2017, and already out of the thirty two startups incubated by them; there have been 27 successful exits. One of their startups has recently got a funding of Rs. 10 Million from BIRAC & DST. This is just the roll out, the hey day of Jaipur is yet to come, Earlier, investors used to scout for investible startups in metros only, but with promising ideas coming out of cities like Jaipur this scenario is changing for good. Sheenu Jhawar
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