Flipkart Leap, the first of eight startups in Flipkart's corporate accelerator programme, has graduated. The eight startups were chosen from nearly 1,000 applicants and underwent a 16-week mentorship programme.

According to Naren Ravula, VP and head of product strategy and deployment at Flipkart, the tailored curriculum connects each startup with mentors and senior leaders from Flipkart based on their industry. Google and Microsoft provide cloud credits and relevant workshops to the cohort. According to Ravula, some of the proofs-of-concept (PoC) could lead to commercial agreements.

Jeyandran Venugopal, chief product and technology officer, Flipkart says, “If you look at India’s ambition to become a $1 trillion digital economy by 2025, digital commerce will play a big part in it. We want to support the make for Bharat narrative.”

The chosen ventures are in areas of strategic importance to the e-tailer, such as retail technology, robotics, agritech, and fintech. Flipkart Leap provides startups with mentorship, training, tools, technology, and business support services, as well as connecting them with relevant investors. It also provides a $25,000 equity-free grant.

One of the graduating startups, Adarsh Kumar, CEO and co-founder of supply chain monitoring solutions provider TagBox, stated that the programme gave them the opportunity to speak with multiple teams across groups to evaluate different types of use cases for their product. The perspectives of industry leaders were an added bonus.

Another graduating startup, Unbox Robotics' CEO Pramod Ghadge, stated that they could do deep dives in areas ranging from hiring to international go-to-market strategy and fundraising.

Mohit Bhatnagar, MD, Sequoia India, Shanti Mohan, founder, Let's Venture, and Mekin Maheshwari, founder, Udhyam Learning all attended the Demo Day on Wednesday.

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