SAP Labs India has launched its fifth annual startup cohort — SAP Startup Studio. The 12-month programme focuses on nurturing the startup ecosystem and providing entrepreneurs opportunities to scale their businesses. This year, German enterprise software maker is accepting applications from early growth stage SaaS startups in the enterprise-tech domain under $1million in annual recurring revenue until May 15th, 2022.
The company said that the startups will be the shortlisted basis of an internal evaluation by a jury comprising SAP’s leadership, sales, and product engineering team. Selected start-ups will get guidance from SAP experts on how they can scale their solutions through an approach of co-innovating with SAP technology, and dedicated market access through the SAP customer and partner ecosystem in India. Through the programme, startups will also gain exposure to the tier-1 and tier-2 VC ecosystem and think tanks in the country.
“The Indian startup ecosystem has seen substantial growth over the years, especially during the pandemic, SaaS-enabled solutions gained more prominence for their benefits of a reduced time to market, increased revenue, and simplified distribution model,” said Sindhu Gangadharan, SVP, SAP User Enablement & MD, SAP Labs India.
“This year, through SAP Startup Studio, aspiring SaaS entrepreneurs will get opportunities to mature and expand their businesses in a nurturing environment. We will co-identify solutions that complement SAP offerings and jointly take them to market. The objective is to fasten their innovative thinking and encourage the entrepreneurial spirit and foster India’s technology startup scene,” she explained.
SAP Startup Studio aspiring SaaS entrepreneurs in India
The company claimed that over the past 5 years, the program has supported 51 early-stage startups from the enterprise tech domain. As part of the engagement, 18 startups have completed their co-innovation engagement with SAP, 15 joint customer go-lives/Paid PoCs and has facilitated over $135 million in external funding for its participating startups.
“As we move forward, our aim is to build this program as the most sought after program in the enterprise space in India and the larger APJ region for SAP, with a key focus on collaborating with SaaS startups through focused engagements both from a co-innovation led GTM model and also creating vital collaboration with the key stakeholders in SaaS space in India,” stated Justin Paul, Head – SAP Startup Studio, SAP Labs India.
SAP Labs Network is a network of SAP’s core research and development entities focused on developing and improving key SAP solutions. SAP Labs India is SAP’s largest Research and Development centre outside its headquarters in Germany and a part of a connected lab network of 20 Labs in 17 countries. Set up in November 1998, SAP Labs India drives SAP’s product strategy, is responsible for SAP core solutions and provides product localization and India specific solutions.
