NetApp Excellerator’s eighth Demo Day puts focus on the unrestrained spirit of startups
July 2021 saw eight startups graduating from the eighth cohort of the NetApp Excellerator, NetApp’s four-month-long global accelerator programme for B2B startups. With this, the total number of startups incubated by the programme since its inception in 2017 touched 50.
Key highlights from Demo Day
The latest cohort of eight startups to graduate from the programme included B2B-location engine Data Sutram, cybersecurity startup FireCompass, AI-focused Metabob, digitisation provider Maxbyte, enterprise application Nife, no-code data platform Snapblocs, HR tech startup State of Mind, and health-tech startup Tongadive. As a proof of the growing global reach of the accelerator programme, cohort 8 witnessed participation from five startups headquartered in the USA, the UK, and Singapore. These global startups were mentored by tech leaders from NetApp India, which has further cemented NetApp Bengaluru as a hotbed of innovation and technology growth for globally relevant solutions.
A key highlight of cohort 8 was that 40+ percent of the startups were led by women founders. Tongadive, Nife, and FireCompass were supported under the NetApp ExcellerateHER, a NetApp Excellerator sub-initiative dedicated to supporting women entrepreneurs leading disruptive B2B technology startups.
The Demo Day also saw Data Sutram being recognized for the best growth strategy, Metabob for the most innovative product, and FireCompass with the Investors’ Choice Award.
Senior NetApp leaders who have mentored these startups closely vouch for their caliber and the impact they are likely to have on addressing business challenges. “The cloud has a lot of moving parts and it is easy to get lost when you are trying to assemble a solution. This is where startups like Snapblocs add value by making it seamless for businesses to deploy cloud solutions,” shared Sisir Shekhar, Principal Engineer, Cloud Volumes SDE, NetApp and Mentor, Snapblocs. Talking about Data Sutram, Vivek Prakash, Director Software Engineering, NetApp, shared, “90 percent of data critical for a business’ success lies outside the company. Data Sutram enables businesses to address that challenge by leveraging actionable location-based insights from external data.”
Enabling unrestrained growth
In addition to business and technical mentorship, these startups from a diverse set of technology areas received access to customers, technology, business support services, connect with ecosystem enablers as well as paid PoCs. “Through our association with NetApp Excellerator, we have been able to expand the geographical footprint of the product outside the Indian market and increase our product development speed by 5x,” shared Manoj Kumar, Founder and CEO, State of Mind. Talking about NetApp ExcellerateHER, Nida Sahar, Founder, Nife, shared, “NetApp ExcellerateHER equates us with other counterparts in the ecosystem and gives us the same provision and privileges. NetApp also customised the programme in a way it made sense for us to address the strategic challenges we were facing.”
Blog Source: Yourstory