ScaleMinds brought together experienced personnel’s of the startup industry of India with the thought of shedding light on ideal accelerator programs and valuable pipelines for investors. The first panel included Ajeet Khurana, Angel investor & former advisor, Kalaari Capital, Anil Joshi, Managing partner, Unicorn India Ventures and Rajiv Indimath, Startup Leadership Program conducted by Akshit Gupta, Co-founder, FundTonic. The second panel conducted by Shradha Patil, ‎Co-Founder and Chief Mentor at TheMentorpreneurs included Sandeep Matta, Founder, Hello Soda (India) and Nainesh himself.

The first panel discussion spoke about the challenges of the Indian startup industry, Ajeet Khurana explains that accelerator programs provide an opportunity for a startup to boost their business. The trend in India has seen a change and upliftment in the industry since the government initiated the digital India campaign.

“Most accelerators are a platform for startups to boost their business. Accelerators are doing a good role and several of the are providing a very minimal value to encourage startups however the trend is getting better in India,” says Ajeet.

The environment of startups in the country is improving but sometimes have loopholes like infrastructure. Most startups are concerned about working in a developed space to function secure and stable communication. Accelerators need to concentrate on the infrastructure that growing companies can function in along with a growing demand of incubators. Most incubators and accelerators need to communicate and Anil Joshi explains the possibility for growth of infrastructure.

“My thoughts are very clear on accelerators and the definition of acceleration is to accelerate. However there is an overlap of accelerators and incubators. They must play their role and join hands in order to develop infrastructure for startups,” says Anil.

During the panel discussion Rajiv Indimath explained that accelerators and incubators must follow a certain way of functioning. Most accelerators decide the management and decisions of most of the startups it accelerates and this provides less independence for those organizations to work under them. Incubators need to understand the perspective of work space startups want to operate in.

Rajiv further says “Most accelerators and incubators are too academic and their functionality has been academic in terms of decisions and frameworks.”

The second panel discussion involved the co-founder of ScaleMinds, Nainesh Kapadia himself along with Sandeep Matta, Founder, Hello Soda. They spoke about the valuable pipelines that investors should look into if they seek to invest in startups. Most Startup accelerators are built to foster rapid growth of its portfolio companies. Nainesh further states, “Accelerators are like base stations from where the startups can take off. Most accelerators function like an investment firms that make small bets on early stage start-ups. However, instead of just providing pre-seed capital, they give the start-ups the resources they need to accelerate growth, including mentorship, business connections and office space.”

The initiatives of involving investors can be uplifted with the increase in accelerator programs. The panel concludes that accelerators play the upper hand by making investors aware of the potential in the current Indian startup market. The incubators that function with the growing infrastructure status of the country contribute to latest and innovative designs in setting up work stations.

“The accelerators provide the office space and a great environment to work. Like Minded people, lot of energy and other teams that are equally keen to scale their businesses. A lot of group learning and same fears and concerns help keep up together to move forward. These too remain friend for life and it’s like creating a new family,” says Sandeep Matta.