Amazon India on Sunday introduced the launch of its ‘Mentor Connect’ programme, which is aimed toward accelerating the expansion of startups and emerging model homeowners enrolled beneath its Amazon Launchpad initiative.
Through the programme, startups and emerging brands will acquire entry to steerage from enterprise capital corporations, business veterans and Amazon leaders via knowledgeable data sharing classes, networking occasions and 1:1 mentorship classes, a press release stated.
Mentors from academic establishments and VC corporations like Fireside Ventures, DSG Consumer Partners, Elevation Capital, Tomorrow Capital have already signed up for the programme to contribute to the Indian startup development story, it added.
“Startups and emerging brands enrolled in the Amazon Launchpad programme can access guidance from these mentors through various ways. This includes one-to-one mentorship with chosen mentors over a three-month period, ongoing networking opportunities with a wider pool of industry experts, or knowledge sharing sessions between these experts and other Launchpad brands,” the assertion stated.
This provides entrepreneurs a platform to have interaction, be taught and showcase their startups to the business’s main subject material specialists to assist deal with strategic and purposeful challenges, it added.
“The Amazon Mentor Connect programme is not limited to startups and emerging brand owners enrolled in the Amazon Launchpad programme, but will also be extended to the winners of the Amazon Smbhav Entrepreneurship challenge in the upcoming Amazon Smbhav summit,” the assertion stated.
The winners would be the first cohort of startups to obtain the advantages related to the Amazon Mentor Connect programme, it added.
Amazon Launchpad at present showcases over 2 lakh merchandise supplied by greater than 800 emerging brands throughout 30 completely different product classes. Popular sectors catered to by these brands embody well being and private care, magnificence and grooming, grocery and residential merchandise.
The second version of ‘Amazon Smbhav’ can be hosted from April 15-18, 2021.
“India has a large startup ecosystem that is key to disruptive innovation and accelerating India’s progress towards an Aatmanirbhar Bharat. Most of these startups are led by first-time entrepreneurs who have the passion to drive a change, but don’t have the experience to deal with the breadth of challenges they face along the way,” Amazon India Director (MSME and Selling Partner Experience) Pranav Bhasin stated.
With the Amazon Mentor Connect programme, the goal is to create a assist system to assist startups unlock their potential by offering them with the correct of mentoring that may assist them scale their enterprise, keep away from blind spots, be taught from the expertise of current leaders, open new doorways and assist them unlock infinite potentialities for a Digital India, he added.
“We are looking to understand grassroots level challenges, understand trends and identify ways of solving these problems for emerging brands. Not only that, VCs like ourselves are always on the lookout for opportunities to meet new and upcoming brands,” Prayag Mohanty, Senior Vice President at Fireside Ventures, stated.
