The CoWrks Foundry, a premier acceleration program, announced the completion of its first cohort, comprising of five innovative startups today.
The CoWrks Foundry is an initiative by CoWrks, one of India’s largest shared office space providers. The program is designed to nurture early-stage startups in the field of Urban Tech, Enterprise Tech, and Social Impact Enterprise, through a rigorous interdisciplinary curriculum, designed by industry veterans & experts. The Foundry’s well-architected framework nurtures durable and scalable businesses by investing in the ideas and the minds behind them.
Out of the 350+ startups that applied to the program from across India and some even international, the final five that were selected to be a part of the accelerator are Wagonfly, Understand Better, Ayasta, Betterly and T-Scale Hub. These companies were assisted with everything from initial seed capital and client acquisition to the art of crafting a stellar pitch.
The 24-week intensive program concluded with a Demo Day on November 14. The 5 startups had the opportunity to pitch their products, ideas and business models to venture capitalists, and prominent industry leaders at the city’s newest entrepreneurial hub – CoWrks Koramangala. In order to fuel entrepreneurship and create an environment where innovators and companies thrive, The Foundry also invited applications from the startups housed within the CoWrks community to pitch on Demo Day.
In addition to providing an initial influx of smart seed capital of upto $30K, The Foundry has been instrumental in equipping home-grown businesses with a solid foundation and the resources required to fully equip, refine and fortify their companies.
Situated within CoWrks’ HQ in Bangalore, the startups in The Foundry have been able to access premium workspaces within CoWrks, and the opportunity to work alongside a carefully curated community of startups, freelancers and large enterprises. Each of the 5 startups were assigned dedicated mentors and experts from relevant industries, to provide targeted coaching and guidance.
As a part of the part of its post-program support, The Foundry will continue to aid these start-ups in terms of mentorship and guidance.
Nruthya Madappa, Managing Partner, The Cowrks Foundry said: “Despite the start-up growth spurt in India, businesses in the Urban Tech, Enterprise Tech and Social Enterprise space, lack the guidance to overcome unique challenges. The CoWrks Foundry is our answer to India’s fractured entrepreneurial ecosystem. In comparison to the sturdy framework and incredible support afforded to thriving startups in Israel, Shanghai and Singapore, India lags far behind. Therefore, it has been our endeavor to provide them with world-class mentorship and expertise, technology and infrastructure support, as well as access to investors and customers so they can scale from idea to execution at an accelerated speed. It has been a grueling yet amazing journey so far, with like-minded peers interacting and learning from The CoWrks Foundry panel, mentors and each other.”
Ravi Teja Avasarala, Cofounder of Ayasta said: “What drew us to the Foundry was the team behind it. They have an inherent understanding of what startups need in order to succeed and what sort of help is required at various stages. I can say without a shadow of a doubt that during the program, the Foundry team worked harder on solving our problems than we did. The networks we got access to would be invaluable to us in our journey. Foundry put in the effort to understanding our Ayasta’s offerings and then helped remove our biases by identifying where we are underselling ourselves. The Foundry program made us better founders which would eventually lead us to become successful entrepreneurs.”
Further to the success of the first cohort, The CoWrks Foundry is inviting applications for the second one by the end of November 2018. The 24 week-long program at the state-of-the-art CoWrks Millenia office in Bangalore will commence in January 2019.
Startups Graduated from the First Cohort:
Start-up |
What they do |
Wagonfly |
Wagonfly is a single stop, cashless, queue less solution for brick and mortar stores. Bringing online checkout experience in offline stores. Solving the last mile supply chain issue in retail stores currently handicapped with manual barcode scanning leading to product dropouts & long queues. |
Understand Better |
Understand Better manages people intelligently with an AI powered HR solution that provides customized, contextual solutions for employee engagement. |
Ayasta |
With a combination of sensors, ML & CV, Ayasta ascertains deterioration, predicts faults and impending risk within a facility and in the external electrical grid. |
Betterly |
Betterly is an anonymous, personalized and economical, tech-enabled platform to address mental health issues. With certified professional counselors and psychotherapists through text, audio and chat, you won’t ever feel alone. |
T-Scale Hub |
T-Scale Hub is a community and platform for architects and vendors where firms can review the work of desirable candidates by paying a subscription fee and vendors can advertise their products & services to the architecture community, generating additional revenue. |
