TWO-DAY STARTUP WALK HOSTED IN CHENNAI ON FEB 14-15

~ State Bank of India launches ‘Incube’, a specialised services for StartUps at the StartUp Walk

Chennai, February 17, 2019: The fourth edition of the Start-Up took place on 14th and 15th February (Thursday and Friday) and concluded with a networking event on Friday evening. The event witnessed 250 participants from all over India, who were shortlisted from a list of 1000 enthusiasts who had expressed interest to be a part of the walk.

StartUp Walk, an initiative started by The StartUp Centre and supported by the State Bank of India, is an effort to bring together the StartUp ecosystem in Chennai and make it easily accessible, for those aspiring to be part of it

Some of the companies that participated in the city-wide open office event are SPI Cinemas, Orangescape, FlintoBox, NotionPress, InkMonk, etc. Start-up Walk provided an opportunity for participants to meet and interact with the founders of various StartUp companies, witness their office spaces and get behind-the-scenes look at the most innovative companies in Chennai and the research entities that are driving them.

During the networking session which took place on Friday evening, SBI announced the launch of ‘Incube’, a specialised service for StartUps in two of its branches, Ekkatuthangal and Teynampet. Incube will provide services for Startups to access loans such as the Mudra scheme or CGTSME scheme (without any collateral). A walk-in has been scheduled on the 22nd of February at Ekkatuthangal and Teynampet, for those who are running a StartUp and would like to avail these financing options.

Speaking about the event, Mr.Vijay Anand, Founder and CEO, The StartUp Centre said, “The fourth edition of the StartUp Walk in Chennai brought together a plethora of learning and opportunities for the participants. I would like to thank the State Bank of India for extending their support towards this initiative and providing the financial platform for successful entrepreneurs to emerge. StartUp Walk is a great knowledge sharing platform and we hope it paves way for Chennai to grow and strengthen its community of SaaS StartUps to greater heights. We hope the participants took back home an experience that will enable them to grow and steer ahead in their career and look forward to their support in the next edition of the StartUp Walk.”

The two-day format which facilitated a visit to the incubator cells and the innovation centres in IIT Madras and Anna University, provided the participants with different insights and knowledge on how a start-up evolves. The presentations shared by the senior management and the walk around their open-offices, helped the participants to gain a different perspective on the culture of StartUps. The anecdotes shared by various founders, also provided a glimpse into the failures and successes they have encountered in their entrepreneurial journey.

Speaking about the initiative, Mr. Suresh Sambandam, Founder of OrangeScape & CEO at KiSSFLOW said: “The start-up space in Chennai has witnessed a major transformation over the last decade, especially in the last five years. The synergy between various organisations through events like StartUp Walk has provided a conducive ecosystem for Chennai to emerge as the SaaS capital of India. StartUp walk helps young entrepreneurs and StartUp enthusiasts to prepare themselves for their entrepreneurial journey and receive the necessary guidance to work in a StartUp culture. I am happy to have had the opportunity to help budding entrepreneurs hone their skills and hope they had a wonderful learning experience at OrangeScape”.

Speaking on his participation, Mr. Ratheesh Krishnan, Head of Experiments & New Ventures, SPI Cinemas, said: “SPI Cinemas is happy to have hosted the participants of StartUp Walk in its fourth edition. Over the last few years, we have been a part of StartUp Walk as participants and hosts and we had the incredible opportunity to learn, teach and share from all the learnings and mistakes we had made. StartUp Walk helps in providing perspectives for existing old companies on how we can re-innovate our business models and adopt new technologies to advance our business further.”