startups drawing board

The H1-B visa programme gets rapped in India because it’s presumed to be causing a “brain drain”. Source: Flickr/Phil Whitehouse

India: Early-stage startups to get a boost IBM and Indian Angel Network partnership

By | 20 October, 2016

INTERNATIONAL Business Machines (IBM) has teamed up with the Indian Angel Network (IAN) to help accelerate Indian startups by providing access to its cognitive, cloud, analytics, IoT and mobility services.

IAN is India’s largest angle network with more than 400 investors from 10 countries and companies in its portfolio will now get the chance to work with the US technology giant through workshops and knowledge sharing sessions on everything form design thinking to cognitive computing and analytics.

As well as offering mentorship and funding support for early stage startups, IBM aims to help these companies to build cloud and cognitive computing capabilities into their products in fields like e-commerce, education, financial services, healthcare, retail and IT.

SEE ALSO: Baidu announces $3bn fund for late stage startups in attempt to stay ahead of the curve

“IBM will engage, influence and mentor the early stage start-up ecosystem and additionally nurture an IP led start-up ecosystem focused on IOT, Artificial Intelligence, Security, Commerce etc and influence by design thinking,” said Nipun Mehrotra, vice president for growth initiatives at IBM India/ South Asia, in a press release.

The partnership will also give companies in IAN’s portfolio the opportunity to apply for the IBM Global Entrepreneur Program, which allows them to apply for up to US$120,000 worth of credits to build their applications on IBM Cloud as well as giving them access to business mentoring, technical support and networking opportunities with IBM’s enterprise clients.

“IAN and its portfolio companies has been associated with IBM in the past and this partnership has helped nurture high growth startups. We believe this synergistic partnership will breed innovative technologies and grow global footprint companies from India,” said Padmaja Ruparel, co-founder and president of IAN, in the press release.



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Edd Gent is a science and technology writer based in Bangalore, India. His main areas of interest are engineering, technology and biology. He has been published by The Economist and the BBC, among other publications.

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