VentureNursery, India’s first angel-backed start-up accelerator has announced third season of its acceleration programme beginning May 16, 2013 at Mumbai. The accelerator will select eight start-ups from media and entertainment, retail, e-commerce, consumer technology, education and clean technology to be mentored and groomed by the team at VentureNursery.

Inviting new applicants, Ravi Kiran, Co-Founder, VentureNursery, said, “Transforming fledgling ideas into a business opportunity is a wonderful experience.  Active participation and support from VentureNursery’s 50 angels, experts and mentors will help us create many such opportunities in next year.”

Shravan Shroff, Co-Founder, VentureNursery, added, “VentureNursery’s active acceleration approach helps budding start-ups to work on their weak areas in a focused manner. More and more start-ups are approaching us primarily for bridging their business gap area.”

On successful completion of the programme, each start-up will be given an opportunity to present its business idea to Charter Angels and Angels-in-Residence for feedback and potential seed-funding. The accelerator will continue to support start-ups even after the acceleration programme is over.

VentureNursery Executive VP, Apoorv Ranjan Sharma, says, “VentureNursery will offer a customised mentoring programme, for up to 13 weeks. The programme begins with identification of the key gaps and challenge areas in each participating start-up by the Angels-in-Residence.

“These challenge areas are then addressed through multiple mentoring sessions by an elite group of serial entrepreneurs, Charter Angels, VCs, technologists and senior corporate managers. The feedback given by each advisor and investor is then collated and incorporated into the business plan of the participating start-up,” adds Sharma.

Entrepreneurs with start ups ideas can apply online till April 15, 2013.