India Startup Festival 2023 begins on a high note with 30 Investors committing 125 term sheets

Press Release

• 11-08-2023

ISF 2023 is a breath of fresh air by bringing HNI’s & VC’s, along with startups together to tackle Funding winter

Bengaluru, 11th August 2023: India Start-up Foundation, a prominent Not-for-profit organization supporting the growth and development of the Indian Start-Up ecosystem, organized the 2nd edition of India Startup Festival (ISF) 2023 from 10th to 12th August 2023 at Bengaluru. The ISF Exhibition was inaugurated by Chief Guest Sadguru Sri Madhusudan, Founder of Sathya Sai University for Human Excellence, Karnataka in the presence of Sri. J A Chowdary, Key Architect, Indian Tech Industry Chairperson & Convenor, India Startup Festival along with Dr. Siva Mahesh  Tangutooru, Deenanath  Harapanahalli and Achyut Yerragangu Co-Founders of India Startup Foundation and other dignitaries. The Keynote address was delivered by Mr. Prashanth Prakash, Chairman Accel and Mr. Vineet Rai, Founder Aavishkaar Group.  This was followed by a grand pitching round at ISF 2023 where 100+ startups meticulously handpicked by the Startup jury pitched before investors including Angel Investors, VC’s and HNI’s. India Startup Festival 2023 begins on a high with 30 Investors committing 125 term sheets. The top 10 startups were awarded cash prizes at ISF 2023 and will be mentored with their sector specific industry leaders. These startups were shortlisted from the Investor Connect Workshops organized in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, USA and UK.

ISF 2023 will be a unique platform for startup founders to Connect with peers, industry leaders and investors, collaborate and draw a growth path for their venture. The 3 day event is expected to be a dynamic platform fostering ideas, innovators, and Start-ups by providing them an ecosystem to interact, network, and collaborate with industry, government bodies and investors making it an ultimate hub of entrepreneurial excellence. ISF 2023 will host over 10,000 startups from India, UK, Japan and many other countries.

Speaking about ISF 2023, Sri. J.A. Chowdary, Key Architect, Indian Tech Industry Chairperson & Convenor, India Startup Festival said, “We are very excited as we host the 2nd edition of India Startup Festival. The India Start-up Festival (ISF) is complementary to the great initiatives of Government of India (GOI) such as Start-up India, Digital India, Make-in-India, etc and will bring together more than 10,000 start-ups to advance their mission and drive towards an Atmanirbhar Bharat. With a vision to reimagine the start-up landscape in India with a primary focus on startups finding solutions to the problems at the bottom of the Pyramid.  The idea is to encourage startups & Innovation in the rural areas to be able to create jobs and encourage youths to make disruptive use of technology & knowledge to find solutions to real life problems, trigger growth and create a sustainable ecosystem in the rural areas. This will help strengthen the Indian economy at grassroot level. We at ISF encourage these startups with an ecosystem of mentors, Investors & provide possibilities of collaborations to help them scale up their idea. We also hand hold these startups till they succeed. This makes ISF a rare and unique platform. We hope the deliberations over the next 2 days will provide insights to help scale up this startup ecosystem and have a positive impact on the economy. The startup ecosystem can de-risk the threat of job-losses likely to be created with advancement and enhanced usage of AI and IoT driven tools.”

The event to be attended by Chief Guests Sadguru Sri Madhusudan, Founder of Sathya Sai University for Human Excellence, Karnataka, Ms. Meenakshi Lekhi, Minister of State for External Affairs and Culture, Priyank Kharge, Minister of Information Technology and BioTechnology, Karnataka, N. S. Boseraju, Minister of Minor Irrigation, Science & Technology Department of Karnataka along with industry leaders, VC’s, HNI’s and startups. (Attached the schedule for the next 2 days).

 Key points discussed by Mr. Vineet Rai, Founder Aavishkaar:

ØThe young startup owner should focus more on sustainability and profitability rather than valuation.

Ø Entrepreneurship should be a choice, but capital should be an option.

Ø Rural Economy contributes 50% to the total Indian Economy.  Of these, 20 million enterprises are non-farm-based enterprises in rural India. This is more than what we have in Urban India which has about 16 million enterprises.

Ø  The rural economy is close to $ 1 Trillion. This is larger than most of the world economies. Instead of focusing on what we are doing, focus on what we can gain from it.

Key Points discussed by Mr. Prashanth Prakash, Partner Accel:

Ø  VC ecosystem in India has matured over the years and the current funding winter is a blessing for companies to focus and achieve sustainable growth.

Ø Historically consumer, fintech & Saas have been fore-runners in the VC world, however this is changing with the emergency of new spaces/ trends

Ø Agritech | Agricultural and allied sector combined is a $500Bn market with crops taking 50% of the share ($250b market). Agritech has seen consistent growth over the past 5 years, with increasing focus on sustainability and it is expected to go up in the future.

ØBharat 2.0 | Made up of rural India & Tier II, III+ cities. This will be driven by a large consumer market with rural India contributing to 500 bn+ consumption

Ø Bharat 2.0 | Top 30% rural tier 2 and 3 spend $10B+ across 12 categories (food & non-food)

Ø Bharat 2.0 | Multiple interesting startups have started emerging to target and solve the problems in this segment of India.

Ø Climate Tech |$1.5Tn + market with clean energy & crucial economy taking 60% of the total market share; No funding slowdown is witnessed in this space

Ø Climate-tech | 2300+ startups have emerged in this space over the last couple of years.

Ø B2B commerce & tech | core fuel to Indian economic growth, gaining traction in the VC space over the last 2-3 years.

He concluded his speech by encouraging young entrepreneurs to explore more opportunities in the agritech space.

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