Angel Investor Vikram Upadhyaya launches Green House Ventures

GURGAON: Prolific angel investor and serial entrepreneur Vikram Upadhyaya on Thursday, October 16, 2014 announced the launch of a unique startup accelerator program.

Named GHV (Green House Ventures) Accelerator, the program is designed to guide the startups not just through the starting-up phase, but also to prepare startups for Series A funding.

“Only 1 per cent startups are successfully able to achieve a Series A or VC funding. Most accelerator programs help companies get past the POC (Proof of Concept) stage, and then leave the startups to fend for themselves while raising growth-capital. As an angel investor, I had felt this need gap for my portfolio companies and hence realised the need of GHV program so that we identify high-potential startups and nurture them to be ready for Series A funding,” says Vikram Upadhyaya, Entrepreneur Evangelist and Chief Mentor, GHV.

Anurag Kapoor, an entrepreneur and startup mentor, will head GHV Accelerator as an Executive Director. He added, “GHV offers startups a better prospect to succeed in the long run, by providing them the required support in the crucial post incubation and pre-venture capital funding stage. GHV and its alumni network will continue to extend ongoing mentoring and support to these ventures, as and when required.”

The Accelerator Program is supported by Global Ecosystems and several VCs, Serial Entrepreneurs and Industry Mentors, who have committed to be on the Mentors Panel of the Accelerator headed by Vikram as Chief Mentor. To name some are-  Rehan Yar Khan (Orios Fund), Mukul Singhal (Saif Partners), Tommy Kamada (Father of Compact HTML), Rajiv Sodhi (GoDaddy India CEO), Sunil Goyal (YourNest Early Stage Fund), Manish Singhal (LetsVenture), Pradeep Gupta (CyberMedia), Manish Vij (Smile Vun Group), Shailesh Singh (Seedfund), Varun Khurana, Uday Sodhi, Prajakt Raut (Founder – The Hub for Startups), Deepak Srinath and many more joining soon, globally as well.

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The plan is to onboard 25 startups in the next 2.5 years. By offering these startups a controlled environment, optimised and appropriate resources, along with sustainability funding (up to USD 100,000) per startup, GHV will help them build a foundation for scalability and achieve healthy business metrics in order to reach the Series A funding in a much shorter time frame as compared to a startup in its general lifecycle. At the end of their term with GHV, the startups will be showcased to Japanese Institutional investors.

GHV will hence be a first of its kind cross-border accelerator in India with a vision to create billion dollar enterprises through a powerful network of mentors. Startups with potential to grow 10x in 12-18 months, will receive support in areas like market research and planning, business and technical mentoring, branding, customer acquisition, identifying the ‘Go-to market’ strategy, fund-raising and regular monitoring of the health of the business on various parameters.

By fostering Frugal Innovations in India, and supporting them to grow to a global scale, GHV supports, promotes and endorses the ‘Make in India’ initiative of the Indian Government.

GHV’s unique sélection criteria – T.E.S.T. (Team, Execution capabilities, Scalability in the business model and Technology) & POC (Proof of Concept), will help determine whether a startup can benefit from mentoring and the GHV accelerator program. According to Vikram Upadhyaya, “As a mentor, I have had the pleasure and privilege of interacting with some really highly motivated entrepreneurs. And while all of them may have had the same level of passion, aspiration and commitment, I have observed that if the startup is well positioned on T.E.S.T. & POC, their chances of success is much higher.”