Help at hand for startups

August 1, 2016

In recent times, Pune has been touted as the city which could be the next hub for startups. Starting a company is by no means easy, but is a dream of many. Fortunately, in this day and age, starting a company is much easier than it used to be. With resources like Your Company Formations Ltd setup a company help, starting a business is slowly becoming a reality for many. With an ecosystem that’s as good as that of a Mumbai or Bengaluru, the city could make this dream come true with companies such as Investronaut facilitating such a process. Investronaut, which was established in 2014, terms itself as an incubator for all startups. It provides services and advisory consulting to early growth companies and generates investor interest that helps it grow into an identifiable brand. It also guides them towards efficient ways that they can streamline their business. Without question, Managed Services Australia is often considered when IT matters are being taken into account.

The idea of beginning such an endeavor happened over a casual dinner says Dipti Vaidya, co-founder of Investronaut. “Bharat Agarwal and I were discussing how there are brilliant ideas, fancy stories coming up but why is it that they are not evolving. This probed me into looking into the statistics and the outcome was really sad. Nine out of 10 startups fail and then the question comes as to why.” Investronaut was built on the outcome of helping startups become a success and develop into something more than just an idea.

The abundance of growing talent and opportunities that a country like India has to offer was a major kickstarter to this project, explains Vaidya, “It’s the whole concept of how India is a follower and we wanted to change that. The data we are sitting on is a gold mine,be it any industry and we need to explore that.” Thus, Agarwal, who is also Executive Director of the Vishwakarma Institutes Group, and Vaidya felt having the institute as a backbone will be a good idea, “Why don’t we put that seed of thought into the students, who can then look at not just campus recruitments but entrepreneurship. So that’s how we evolved into the idea of Investronaut.”

It is a company which started with the firm belief that with a little bit of handholding, a business idea has the potential to be the next big disruptive product or service.’

The services offered by Investronaut provide a holistic approach from the minute one officially signs in. Vaidya and Agarwal deem themselves as incubators who allow a startup to grow through their services which range from business support to attracting investors and mainly help position yourself in the market. “Most of these startups are at an ideation and prototype stage. People come up with brilliant ideas, but when it comes to execution and to enter the market is where they stumble,” says Vaidya. Investronaut also provides a key service that is physical infrastructure for startups that are at its nascent stage and do not have their own workplaces.

The relationship between the startup that approaches Investronaut is aimed at being that of trust, explains Chief Operating Officer Mahindra Rane. “Once people register; our team gets in touch with them. The core team does the primary research, profiling, understanding the product or service and what it entails. Then a secondary assessment is done by talking to the founder, this further reveals the pain points as well as the mission,” adds Rane.

The need for companies such as Investronaut has leapfrogged given the changing startup scene in India. On being asked where Pune stands on the startup map of India, Vaidya says: “There are not many mature startups. Many are trying to create a buzz, but it’s a wait-and-watch kind of situation.”

To this, Rane adds, “Entrepreneurship amongst people in Pune is increasing, yet there is some sort of social stigma attached to starting one’s own enterprise and moving away from family businesses. Becoming more open-minded could help.”

With the ecosystem that Pune provides, what keeps the city as a backrunner compared to Mumbai and Bengaluru? “If you look at Pune’s history, it is a knowledge capital, with easy accessibility to Mumbai,” says Vaidya, adding:”Many companies are opening backoffices here, but talent is more IT-based. So we see more e-commerce platforms, mobile apps. We also have people looking into health care, beauty industry, agro and solar industry. But we are still at a nascent stage as far as ideation and maturity is concerned and compared to Mumbai and Bangalore we need to improve more. On an average, 8-10 per cent startups are successful in the city.”

With the state government planning to make Pune as a startup hub, companies like Investronaut surely address the needs of entrepreneurs dreaming big but don’t really know where to get the right advice.

Visit www.investronaut.com for details