NASSCOM (National Association of Software and Services Companies) in collaboration with Global Business Inroads (GBI) will be organizing a “Europe Investor Connect program” for Indian start-ups in a virtual mode. NASSCOM is India’s premier IT/ITES company association which is also known as largest incubator of tech startups of India. NASSCOM has also initiated a program called '10,000 Startups' in 2013. The purpose of 10000 Startup is to support and impact 10,000 startups by 2023.

The Europe Investor Connect program will be a series of e-Pitching sessions starting from Oct 2020 with a duration of 2 hours showcasing the most innovative Indian tech start-ups to European investors. The promising start-ups will be curated based on the sectors of interest and the investment criteria of  the European VCs. They will have chance to show their innovative solutions virtually through video conferencing, post which we will be facilitating one-on-one discussion between the start-ups and the VCs who would like to explore possibilities for investments.  

We are building this European Investor connect platform with the aim to connect over 100+ European VCs, Corporates, Angel investors to Indian start-ups and build capacity of European investors and Indian start-ups on the opportunities for investment and growth. We will be organising 8 investor virtual pitch events across 15 months with the first event to take place in November 2020.

India is the third largest startup ecosystem in world with over 1300 startups getting added each year. In 2019-2020, the total number of Indian unicorns grew to 24, with seven startups being added to the list. The Indian startup ecosystem continued to attract investor interest with almost $4.4 billion across of funding in 2019 (Jan to Sep). The Indian tech start-up ecosystem is in the midst of a decade of 10X growth (2014-2025) and by 2025, there is potential to have a cumulative industry valuation of ~$400 Billion and around ~100 unicorns.

The investors from Europe have the opportunity to be associated with the young and most promising budding Startup ecosystem by actively taking part in it. E-pitching sessions are organized to facilitate contact between European investors and Indian startups amid the travel restrictions in place because of the pandemic and strengthen collaboration between both sides.

Please find attached:

• A brief overview of the Indian Startup Ecosystem:  Please refer to the following link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PaP-KCz2g8BWB8NLQ7i757A-w5hJl312/view?usp=sharing
• Event Overview: Please refer to the following link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xXSB7AiFTWerNEJlyO_8YLI-fA4cSp8g/view?usp=sharing
• Event Date for 1^st European Investor Connect pitch session: 27^th November 2020
• Time: 10:30 – 13:00 (CET) / 9:30 – 12:00 (GMT) / 15:00-17:30 (IST)
• Registration: As result of the pandemic, some sectors (travel, leisure, retail, etc.) have been hit hard but there are some other sectors that have seen renewed interest by the investor community. These include healthcare, telemedicine, online education and entertainment, logistics and delivery services, cloud-based internet infrastructure companies, companies offering technologies for remote working and tools for small businesses rocked by COVID-19 shutdowns. Please fill this short survey to provide us your sectoral preference basis on which we will curate startups for you - https://forms.gle/rmvbLfE9MQu1QHHt7.
• Please share your investment criteria and register your interest to participate in the first European VC Connect before the 13^th of November 2020

We invite you to register for this online initiative of Europe and NASSCOM and meet with innovative tech start-ups through video conferencing. We will get back to registered participants in the coming weeks with more details such as date, time and duration of these sessions.