Replicas now in Bristol, Paris, Sao Paulo, Singapore, Tel
Aviv
When
Oracle, one of the world’s biggest technology companies, wanted to set up its
first start-up accelerator, it chose India’s Silicon Valley, Bengaluru. With
$37 billion in annual revenue, the company introduced the initiative as a pilot
programme last April and it has been a success for the organisation.
The
Redwood City, California-based firm has now expanded its ‘start-up cloud
accelerator’ by opening new centres across the globe in Bristol, Delhi–NCR,
Mumbai, Paris, Sao Paulo, Singapore and Tel Aviv.
“Working
with start-ups is a very energising endeavour and a learning experience for
us,” said Sanket Atal, group vice- president of development, Oracle India, in
an interview. “It is a synergistic kind of relationship that we have with
them,” said Mr. Atal who led the pilot programme.
The
programme is being run by members of the Oracle research and development team.
It provides six months of mentoring by technical and business experts, and
venture capitalists and entrepreneurs from outside the firm. The company said
that it also provided technology, co-working space, access to Oracle customers,
partners and investors, and free Oracle cloud credits.
Baby
monitor devices
In
India, the accelerator has incubated young firms with innovations ranging from
sleep monitoring devices for infants to fintech companies focused on alternative
payment mechanism. Among them is Ray IoT Solutions which has developed a
mobile-based sleep monitoring device to detect infant healthcare dysfunctions
using artificial intelligence.
The
non-contact baby monitor tracks sleeping and breathing activity and analyses
and relays a host of information about the baby’s health. Another firm
initCodes specialises in fintech innovation, data protection and futuristic
commerce. It is building a unified intelligence platform for digital
transactions using the cloud, blockchain technology and predictive analytics.
NiYO
Solutions, one of the companies selected early for the Oracle accelerator
programme, said that the success of a start-up depended more on the execution
than on the product.
“The
moment you go to a customer and talk about your product coming out of the
Oracle accelerator, a certain respect comes out (from them) automatically,”
said Vinay Bagri, co-founder of NiYO Solutions, a fintech firm focused on
payroll and benefits management for employees working at different companies.
The
company said that it bagged about 70 customers including Hero Group and Cafe
Coffee Day within six months of joining the programme. It also got funded by a
VC firm within a month of entering the accelerator.
Oracle’s
rivals such as Microsoft, SAP and Amazon have been engaging with young firms
for a couple of years. But Oracle said this was the right time to reach out to
the “start-up ecosystem”.India. “I don’t see this as competition. What attracts
start-ups to us is that Oracle technologies are foundations of the most
successful companies. It is a very aspirational thing,” said Mr. Atal.
Source: THE HINDU- 20th March,2017
