Mumbai: DainikBhaskar Group today announced that the Group’s non-profit arm, Ramesh and ShardaAgarwal.
Foundation is launching India’s first start-up funding competition for start-ups from Tier 2 and 3 cities which are India’s new growth engines. The initiative is powered by Mumbai Angels (The MA Network), India’s premier angel investing network.
The program will shortlist start-ups that can pitch for funding to more than 300 members of The MA Network across the country. DainikBhaskar Group will invest in the winning start-ups, mentor them to help them grow to their full potential and support them to compete on an equal platform in India and internationally.
Startups who have either an offering or a product or a prototype ready and have commenced operations or beta testing can write into [email protected].
The Ramesh and ShardaAgarwal Foundation was founded in January 2018 with core focus on education of the girl child from underprivileged families through Sanskaar VidyaNiketan. The Foundation is aiming to provide educational facilities to 3000 girls over next two years in 6 cities. It also aims to adopt 20 Vradhashrams (old age homes) in 18 cities. This initiative of providing a business growth platform to people having great ideas but lacking resources or needing guidance, is also one of it’s core outlined agendas.
GirishAgarwaal, Promoter-Director, DainikBhaskar Group said, “We believe India’s prosperity depends strongly on its natural talent for entrepreneurship. Our primary purpose behind launching this initiative is to ensure that start-ups from fast-growing cities across India get an equal opportunity for growth and access to funding as start-ups in any other part of the country. As the largest media house in India, we consider it to be our responsibility to contribute to the growth of the start-up ecosystem in India and help create several more home-grown success stories”.
Nandini Mansinghka, CEO and MD, Mumbai Angels Network said, “The MA Network is continuously scouting for innovative start-ups and we are very excited to partner with the DainkBhaskar Group to identify the some of the best start-ups from across India’s smaller towns and cities. The selected start-ups will be invited to pitch to over 300 members of our network across 6 cities.”