SAP Labs Hosts Slush GIA

The market leader in enterprise application software, SAP,  hosted Slush Global Impact Accelerator, the India meetup for the startup ecosystem at the campus of SAP Labs India, Whitefield, Bangalore.

Slush, a world-renowned startup and tech event meets annually at Helsinki, Finland with a footfall of 18,000+ participants across the startup ecosystem. The Global Impact Accelerators (GIAs) by Slush is a program created in collaboration with the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland and other multiple partners globally and takes place in more than 20 countries every year. The India meet up is aimed to identify path breaking innovations across the country and provide them an all-expenses paid week long boot camp at Slush, Finland.

“The startup ecosystem in India is witnessing a rapid change and is at the forefront of innovation. The interest of world renowned startup events to host an event in India helps in nurturing local innovations and is a testimony to the growing global interest of the Indian startup community,” said Dilipkumar Khandelwal, President, SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud and Managing Director, SAP Labs India. “SAP has always supported globally scalable startups, and we take pride in collaborating with Slush.”

Designed to identify and promote impact startups and showcase exciting business opportunities in emerging markets across the world, Slush brought GIA to Bangalore this year.  Anirudh Balakrishnan, CEO of Touchdown Gurus, the official organizers of Slush GIA said that global organizations like Slush provide great opportunities for Indian startups to find offshore customers and scale internationally. “Impact startups will have to apply to the program and a Slush committee will pick the most relevant ones. Any startup, whether non-profit or commercial, with a vision to solve pressing global challenges can apply. The startup should have a working prototype, potential to scale and must have gained some traction even if in its early phase,” he added.

While technology based startup remains the pivot, there are no limitations in terms of sector or geographical focus. Noting the importance of such international platforms Rajat Tandon, President of the Indian Private Equity & Venture Capital Association said “I’m certain that impact investors will see their portfolio companies get the right network. It’s important that funds deployed in India find markets abroad creating greater value for the Indian investor ecosystem and encouraging more capital to be deployed in healthier businesses.”

Chakr innovation – which is into converting pollution to ink; Osteo 3D – which provides 3D models for surgical purpose and Jeevtronics – which has developed the world's first dual powered bi-phasic defibrillator to work in geographic areas without electricity are the three impact startups that were chosen and announced at the Slush GIA event today.

Later this year, these three winners will be get to attend the bootcamp at Helsinki which includes skill development and capacity-building workshops with global leaders. Besides, they will also attend the main Slush conference at Helsinki and be a part of industry-specific matchmaking to meet leaders in their domains.