In the dynamic landscape of entrepreneurship, where innovation meets purpose, TheCSRUniverse unveils the inspiring journey of seven impactful women-led start-ups – Climate Sense, Green Grahi, Green Delight, MOWO Fleet, Swachha Eco Solutions, KNP Arises Green Energy, and Bharat Krushi Seva. Through TVARAN, a transformative six-month acceleration program by social incubator enterprise - Villgro and global leader in IT and Networking, Cisco, these start-ups redefine industry norms and contribute significantly to renewable energy, water and waste management, and climate-smart agriculture.
Initiated in October 2022, the joint efforts have achieved a pivotal milestone in April 2023, marking notable accomplishments. From recycling 55,000 tons of plastic to inspiring 400 farmers towards climate-smart practices, these start-ups have not only expanded their operational reach but also experienced substantial revenue growth, garnered investments from venture capitalists, and successfully launched commercial pilot projects with diverse businesses and channel partners. Leveraging a forward-thinking approach, they create a ripple effect of positive change across communities and the environment.
During this transformative journey, these start-ups received vital support, including a significant financial grant of 20 lakh rupees each, to execute robust Go-To-Market (GTM) strategies. With guidance from Cisco mentors and facilitated connections with market partners, the start-ups successfully commercialized and scaled their ventures. Collectively, they raised INR 3.05 crore in grants and equity investment. Initiatives like expanding to new geographies, on-boarding farmers, and launching commercial pilots highlight the tangible impact of TVARAN on individual start-ups, showcasing its commitment to fostering innovation and sustainable entrepreneurial growth.
Let's delve into the reflections of Mr. Harish Krishnan, Managing Director and Chief Policy Officer, Cisco India & SAARC, and Ms. Kalyani Krishna, Manager, Gender Inclusion, Villgro, through their exclusive interviews on our platform. They share insights into their mentorship roles, the program's impact on start-ups, and its broader implications for sustainability, technology, and inclusivity. These voices provide a glimpse into the future of women-led start-ups in India, showcasing the intersection of climate action and gender equality in a landscape where innovation and empowerment converge.
Scroll down for complete insights.
Interview 1
Spokesperson: Mr. Harish Krishnan, Managing Director and Chief Policy Officer, Cisco India & SAARC
Q. Cisco has played a crucial role in mentoring start-ups within the TVARAN program. Can you provide more details about the nature of this mentorship and the specific areas in which Cisco offered guidance and expertise?
A. Cisco has a very structured system to provide practical mentorship, which can be instrumental in helping start-ups succeed. The start-ups are guided in multiple areas – innovation & technology, financial management, branding, marketing & GTM strategy, people & processes, growth and expansion, building government linkages, etc. While these start-ups have the much-needed innovation and passion for succeeding and enabling societal transformation, they may require guidance when it comes to organizational management and growth. This is where Cisco mentors who are also subject matter experts, come in. These Cisco mentors offer one-on-one mentorship to these start-up founders. This involves regular meetings, responding to queries, and offering advice based on their experience. Some of the mentors also act as sounding boards for ideas and help start-ups navigate challenges. The intent is not to just solving the challenge for the start-ups, but providing them with all the necessary information and resources that will help them make informed decision. To give you an example, a senior member of the Cisco team engaged with one of the start-ups working on Artificial Intelligence models to estimate the dimensions of trees in a large field. Through a couple of sessions, they discussed the build versus buy model, aspects of intellectual property rights around technology that they had developed and training and testing the large data set for accuracy. Through these interactions, the start-up was able to plan and anticipate their technology development, better and more efficiently.
Q. How does Cisco envision the future of the TVARAN program and its potential impact on the ecosystem of women-led start-ups in India?
A. Today, the world is witnessing the emergence of women entrepreneurs taking the helm in critical industries. Whether it's the traditional realms of textiles and lifestyle brands or, the dynamic IT sector and the financial and climate change sectors, women are undoubtedly reshaping the landscape of India’s start-up ecosystem. And we must continue to bring more such start-ups to the fore as they have the ability to address some of the critical economic, social, and cultural challenges.
Cisco’s purpose is to power an inclusive future for all, and programs like TVARAN are truly reflective of this vision. The TVARAN program is unique for it brings together themes of women's entrepreneurship and climate tech, both the needs of the hour. Having just closed the current accelerator, our focus is on staying engaged with each of the start-ups and learning from their experiences as part of this program. In certain cases, the accelerator has helped nurture and shape one aspect of implementation, while in another, it helped replicate an idea. Each scenario presents something new and unique as a learning and takeaway. We are excited about this very impact that each start-up has and will be fine-tuning and scaling in the years to come.
The shortlisting of start-ups for the current cohort was a true challenge for the team, given the relevance and potential of each start-up. Cisco is very confident that accelerators and themes like that of TVARAN will continue to help make the start-up landscape more dynamic, diverse, and relevant.
Q. From your perspective, what are the most significant takeaways and lessons learned from the TVARAN Accelerator Program, particularly regarding the growth and refinement demonstrated by cohort participants?
A. While we anticipated some aspects, certain areas were discovered during the accelerator journey. For example, one of the start-ups developed an additional feature in an app, an automated weather alerting system that keeps farmers informed about the changing weather conditions and delivers farm-specific, crop-specific, and crop-stage-specific actionable recommendations to reduce the loss in yield. While data, knowledge, and resources are critical aspects, the delivery through technology is the true game changer, demonstrating the catalytic role that it can play. As mentioned earlier, we also witnessed how important it is for founders to have access to trustworthy, experienced mentors who can help them identify the problem in such a way, that it will enable them to come up with a solution.
Q. How does the program align with Cisco's broader goals in terms of sustainability, technology, and inclusivity, and what are the company's expectations for the long-term impact of the TVARAN program?
A. It is our purpose of powering an inclusive, sustainable, and equitable future for all that acts as a guiding principle for how we do everything as a company. In the last decade, we have seen a significant increase in the number of women-led businesses, and various government schemes and programs created specifically to support this growth. The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) Women's Entrepreneurship Report 2016-2017 indicated that female entrepreneurs are more likely to hire women, leading to higher proportion of female employees compared to male-led businesses. We have witnessed many of the TVARAN start-ups practicing the same and helping close the gender gap. With continued efforts through various stakeholders, like Cisco and Villgro,we expect that the future of women-led businesses in India will be characterized by increased representation, innovation, and economic growth.
Interview 2
Spokesperson: Ms. Kalyani Krishna, Manager, Gender Inclusion, Villgro
Q. Villgro has an impressive track record of supporting social enterprises. Could you share more about the impact of the TVARAN Accelerator Program on the 7 women-led start-ups, such as job creation and its influence on local communities?
A. The seven start-ups belong to different sub sectors under climate action - therefore the kinds of impact each of them have created are different. For all of them, TVARAN has been instrumental in helping them implement their GTM plans and access the market. This has allowed them to expand to new geographies, improve their product - thereby increasing their customer base. This increase in business has allowed each enterprise to increase impact in their domain of work. For example, MOWO on-boarded 30+ new women drivers, and Bharat Krushi Seva on-boarded 400 new farmers in a new geography.
Q. Villgro recognizes the need for market connections and access to finance for start-ups led by women. How does the program address these vital support aspects, and what has been the response from the start-ups?
A. While selecting the 7 start-ups, we were very clear that we are looking for women-led enterprises that have product ready and need support to access the market. We did a 1 month GTM planning support where we had deeper conversations with these entrepreneurs to understand and fine tune their GTM plans. While we did this, we boiled down to what the program can bring to the table - both from Villgro and CISCO. Once the acceleration phase kicked off, we went into the implementation phase of the plan decided. For example, one of the selected start-ups wanted to expand the B2B side of their business. We brain-stormed on what are the ideal channels to start this and arrived at 2-3 corporates we can start conversation with. During the acceleration phase we essentially played the role of an extended sales team for the start-up and started having these conversations with the different corporates. By the end of the program, we were able to see promising results with 2 of the conversations.
The start-ups were in great appreciation for the program support & visibility.
Q. The first cohort of 7 start-ups in the TVARAN program was carefully selected. Could you elaborate on the specific master-classes and evaluation criteria used to identify these start-ups for support?
A. The top 7 start-ups were evaluated on the innovation & its market readiness, their GTM plan and impact created.
The master classes provided to the top 10 start-ups to help them build a strong GTM plan. This included financial planning for scaling, access to the right kind of funding for scale, design thinking for building a sales plan & Impact measurement.
Q. What are the long-term goals and aspirations for the TVARAN Accelerator Program, and how do you envision it impacting the landscape of women-led start-ups in the future?
A. We all know climate change disproportionately affects women. Moreover, The IFC estimates only 7% of venture funding and 3% of philanthropic environmental funding are targeted towards women-led businesses. Additionally, women-led businesses face barriers in accessing networks and markets which further widens the gap. TVARAN was initiated to address this gap. The program believes we need to bring more women into the forefront of fighting climate change and hope to gather more stakeholders, ecosystem players - driving similar initiatives - to come together to help these women entrepreneurs fighting climate change build a sustainable business.
Q. Could you share any unique challenges as well as success stories from the program that exemplify the resilience and innovation of the women entrepreneurs involved?
A. Through the program we were able to build market connections for the women entrepreneurs. For example, one of the start-ups -- Greengrahi is launching a commercial pilot of their by-product with ESSMART - a rural distribution network. Green delight (Bliss pads) has been having promising conversations with 2 corporations to establish vending machines (at a commercial price) in their premises. One of the start-ups, KNP Arises also raised an equity investment of 2.05Cr with an investor connection made through the program. The program has also unlocked additional grants worth 1Cr for KNP & Greendelights.
Although these are only a few of the successes, there have been several conversations that fell through for the entrepreneurs during the program. Each scenario, with a positive or negative outcome, the women were very clear on what they wanted from the engagement. This came from their thorough understanding of their technology & the impact they wanted to create with it. This has led the conversation to go back and forth several times, but eventually yield the result needed.
Q. How do you perceive the intersection of climate action and gender equality in the context of Villgro's mission, and how does the TVARAN program contribute to this intersection?
A. At Villgro, we are committed to bringing more women into the formal economy. We want to achieve this by leveraging our learnings from the start-up ecosystem in the last 2 decades. We have set out to achieve this under 2 ambitious targets for the next 5 years:
- Providing access to Markets & finance for 50 women led enterprises in climate action
- Providing climate resilient livelihood opportunities for at least 10,000 women micro entrepreneurs
TVARAN contributes to the first strategic goal set. Our learnings from TVARAN have played a big role that led us to launch our 4th sector - Gender inclusion in April 2023.
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