Nexus of Good: Igniting innovation

According to the last economic survey, almost half of India’s over 16,000 recognised startups have come from Tier II and III cities, growing at a rate of 45-50 per cent every year since 2014. In fact, the number of startups from beyond the metros has grown significantly in the recent past as innovators from these regions set out to solve very unique India-specific problems. However, despite their caliber, the majority of these startups face a common set of challenges to sustain and scale. These include limited access to mentors, funding, investors, networking opportunities, and guidance on go-to-market strategies.

The youth of India hold much-untapped potential, that when given the opportunity, can perform wonders. With smart creativity and innovation, Indian startups and Small/Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) are capable of bringing about change across social, economic, and technological spheres.

Piyush Verma’s Manush Labs is a hybrid (for-profit + non-profit) impact accelerator programme that fosters inclusive entrepreneurship culture in India and provides startups from all parts of India with technical and business guidance, investor networks, market access, tools, partnerships, and due diligence information needed to scale their venture ideas. Its mission is to bridge the gap between the international entrepreneurship and investor community and entrepreneurs of India. It aims to do this by exposing innovators and entrepreneurs from across the country to global experts through a series of programmes and services designed to foster an inclusive entrepreneurship culture pan-India.

The MIT-Harvard-born startup focuses on innovation in India and aims to empower the country’s entrepreneurs. Their first programme, the ‘Sustainability Accelerator 2020’, was an intensive hands-on and collaborative programme for early-stage social startups. The programme was a platform for startups in the food and agriculture sector to get guidance that gives them a chance to make full use of their innovations to help overcome challenges of the industry, which in turn, affects a much larger number of people positively.

Manush Labs is supported by Nudge Foundation and Social Alpha, a Tata Trusts initiative that aims to strengthen India’s science and technology startup ecosystem. It has also received support from several entrepreneurship institutions across MIT and Harvard, including MIT Sandbox and Harvard I Labs. Additionally, it collaborates with several global and Indian investors to handhold startups through various stages, from mentoring to funding.

Piyush’s team aims to nurture social innovators through the lens of systems thinking. MIT alum Verma, who was associated with the MIT Tata Center for Technology and Design from 2018-20 as Tata Fellow, is also an alum of the IIT Delhi Department of Design and has more than five years of experience in the design and innovation sector. Coming from a tier II city in India, he is well-versed with the challenges faced by innovators in the country. “Covid has pushed back the development efforts of India by many years. To tackle such enormous socio-economic challenges, we would need scalable innovation and entrepreneurial ideas. Currently, the entrepreneurship ecosystem is disproportionately inclined towards a handful of metro cities in India. We aim to support entrepreneurs from all parts of the country so that they can become substantial contributors towards progress during this time of uncertainty,” he says.

For its first programme, Sustainability Accelerator 2020, Manush Labs on-boarded more than 60 mentors from 11 countries from organisations like Google, Facebook, MIT, Harvard, and more, while partnering with leading organisations such as Gates Foundation, Social Alpha, Kaplan Foundation, and Acumen, among others. Their investor sessions and first demo day saw the participation of around 100 investors from around the world.

The programme included entrepreneurs from more than 30 towns and cities across the country, all of whom benefited from the investor access and know-how shared on how to raise funds, get market access, practice user research, and strengthen their go-to-market strategies.

Through its first cohort – which includes startups like Bariflo Labs that provides AI-IoT-driven smart tech solutions for aquafarmers, Kisan India, India’s first online agriculture marketplace, and SAAF Energy, a next-gen decentralised cleantech company – Manush Labs has indirectly impacted the lives of more than 9,000 people and reduced several hundred tons of greenhouse gas emissions, says IIT-Delhi alumnus Piyush, who found inspiration from the robust entrepreneurship culture he saw at MIT and Harvard. Piyush Verma has been awarded the Forbes 30 under 30 award for social entrepreneurship in 2021 for his efforts and has been featured by several organisations across India and US including YourStory, Amar Ujala, Boston Business Journal, MIT Tata Center, etc.

Through its first programme, Manush Labs has enabled 359 investor connections, conducted more than 300 one-on-one mentor hours, and organised dozens of workshops and expert sessions. They recently concluded their first Graduation Day where 25 startups graduated successfully. Along with the Manush Labs core team, chief advisors, and mentors, we were joined by billionaire investor Mr Gururaj 'Desh' Deshpande, who is best known for founding the Deshpande Foundation.

Manush Labs Alumni have won several accolades.

- GreenPod Labs: It won the most scalable startup award from C-Shark Tank she1K, won a TANSEED research grant from Startup TN, and got recognised as one of the top 30 startups to watch by Inc42 Media.

- Atsuya Technologies Pvt Ltd: Winner of AI for Agriculture, Safar Hackathon conducted by Google+ HUL and MyGov.

- Landwirt India Pvt Ltd: Under top 15 by Amazon Sambhav 2021.

- Zeroplast Labs: Selected for Social Alpha-H&M Foundation Challenge.

Indeed, for Manush Labs, this may just be the beginning but it presents a wonderful example of Nexus of Good. There’s more to be done in this mission to combat social inequities and transform whole societies by empowering humane entrepreneurial ventures and innovations that go beyond business profitability.

Views expressed are personal