13 Indian startups graduate from Bosch’s DNA accelerator program

BENGALURU: Bosch India has announced the graduation of 13 technology startups from its launch accelerator program — Discover, Nurture and Accelerate (DNA). After 18 weeks of intense development, mentoring and piloting, Bosch will partner and collaborate with these technology startups that work in the areas of, aerospace, mobility, social impact, healthcare and agriculture, apart from others.

“Bosch has an inherent advantage. We draw on our years of experience, spanning across several industries, to mentor these start-ups. We support nascent teams by offering technological inputs. Such aspects, will help the eco-system in the long-term as we are geared towards improving their business sustainability,” said, Manohar Esarapu, Head, Bosch India, corporate venture program DNA. Esarapu believes that by combining the creativity of start-ups with the experience of Bosch, significant value can be unlocked.

The elected startups are those which find resonance with Bosch’s corporate strategic imperative “Invented for life”. On receiving 450 applications, the selected few were carefully sifted. Teams were eliminated on grounds of lack of clarity with respect to ideas, business plans not offering much potential for growth. Every passing round the teams were judged on their plan, their solution as well as their understanding of the market that they claimed to address. Based on these solutions, Bosch also assessed the value the Group could offer with respect to enhancing their existing business plan. “The chosen start-ups are in those areas that could add value to our existing business, as much as we can add to theirs,” commented Esarapu.

Bosch India strongly believes that DNA is not a one-off activity, but part of the group’s long-term growth strategy. Startups, according to the company, create significant value, and India is one of the crucial hotspots. A proof of that, is the variety of startups the Group is partnering with: from a team who converts soot to printable ink using a proprietary liquid, to an-other team who provides customizable home automation solution. The chosen few also includes, a startup who harnesses the power of virtual reality to save around 90 percent cost that is invested in life-size prototyping. Part of the same cohort, another includes a startup that is developing a market viable diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN) screening.

Bosch has indicated that its accelerator program will increasingly look to collaborate with those who build technology solutions in areas such as, internet of things (IoT), deep learning, analytics, cloud, virtual reality and block chain.