Kerala Startup Mission To Launch Scalathon 2020 For Growth-Focused Startups

The Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM), a nodal agency for startups in Kerala, on Monday (December 30), announced that it will be organising the second edition of Scalathon on January 7, 2020, in association with Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce Industry (FICCI) and Wadhwani Foundation.

The programme, Scalathon, will be held at Abad Plaza, Ernakulam and invited all the growth-focused startups with an annual turnover of INR 5 Cr and above, where KSUM plans to help them scale their business. It also provides mentorship programme to budding entrepreneurs to accelerate business growth in Kerala. Through this initiative, it belives to create job opportunity in the state.

The first edition of Scalathon was held in December 2019 at KSUM’s Integrated Startup Complex in Kalamassery. Additionally, KSUM had also announced the fifth edition of Seeding Kerala initiative, which will be held on February 7 and 8, 2020. The programme will include angel investors and early-stage venture capitalists from across the globe taking part in the seed funding round of emerging startups in Kerala.

In addition to this, the programme will be giving startups the opportunity to showcase their ideas to investors, entrepreneurs, ecosystem enablers and stakeholders.

KSUM Going The Extra Mile To Help Startups Grow 

In November 2018, the fourth edition of Seeding Kerala was started with a workshop called ‘Elevate,’ an investor education programme. This initiative introduces potential investors to various startups from across sectors, including healthcare, deeptech, rural and social enterprises, hardware and electronics among others. ConceptOwl, an edtech startup emerged as the winner of the pitching session of this programme, where it had raised funding of INR 3 Cr from Indian Angel Network.

Started in 2006, KSUM is headed by Saji Gopinath. Over the years, KSUM has evolved to boost the startup ecosystem to the next level. It has collaborated with international education institutes, accelerators and tech conferences to take the Kerala startup ecosystem to the next level. The startup nodal entity has helped more than 130 startups till July 2019 to take their product and services to the international market.

KSUM also offers International Entrepreneurial Exchange Programme, where students and young entrepreneurs from Kerala are given the opportunity to experience the international startup ecosystem. The selected startups will be undergoing an exchange programme to startups located in Silicon Valley, London, Tokyo, Tel Aviv, Singapore and others.

KSUM believes that this will give the startups an international platform to showcase their products and services. Interestingly, 90% of the travel expenses are borne by KSUM. Last year, 80 startups were part of this programme.

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