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Two city-based entrepreneurs and an IIM professor have come together to set up eastern India’s first structured accelerator, Neoleap Business Ventures.
Raghav Kanoria, instrumental in setting up the Calcutta Angels Network – an angel fund network focussed on investing in East India; Kumar Vardhan Patodia, Director at city-based real estate company, Unimark Group; and Prof Chandradeep Mitra, Professor of Marketing at the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, are the three behind formation of Neoleap. Patodia is also a co-founder of the Calcutta Angels Network.
According to Kanoria, Neoleap will help, guide and mentor start-ups from the eastern region to realise their true potential.
As of now there are four start-ups which the company is mentoring.
The programme will run for four months from August to September. The second batch, expected to start in January, will also mentor four to five such start-ups.
“There was a need to have a structured framework to help start-ups from the East. We will also look to give these start-ups access to angel investors, angel networks and family offices where they can pitch their products,” he said.
The modus operandi of acceleration is to attach a mentor - a person having domain expertise in the segment the start-up will look to work in.
In addition to mentoring, Neoleap will organise workshops on compliance, taxation, social media management, company law, financial modelling and IT architecture from leading players in East India
Neoleap is also in talks with various industry associations and institutions such as Nasscom, CII, Indian Chamber of Commerce, Indo-German Chamber of Commerce, IIM Calcutta, IIT Kharagpur as well as consulates such as the US Consulate and British Deputy High Commission for strategic alliances to co-create the ecosystem.
Besides the founders, the accelerator has also constituted an advisory board comprising Joydeep Bose, National Head, CISCO India, Padmaja Ruparel, President, Indian Angel Network and Dipankar Chatterjee, Sr. Partner, L B Jha & Co.
Incidentally, Neoleap also has a revenue model where it will charge start-ups a joining fee, a commission on the funds raised and sweat-equity in the venture.
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