Srinagar: Seven top business honchos have joined hands to transform Jammu and Kashmir’s startup and entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Led by the chief executive officer (CEO) of Excitel Broadband Vivek Raina, an incubation fund called ‘Launchpad Kashmir’ has been launched to support aspiring entrepreneurs and early-stage start-ups with essential resources and mentorship to accelerate their growth.
The other six business gurus include Muheet Mehraj, founder of Launchpad Kashmir, Khalid Wani, senior director at Western Digital, Namrata Kaul, director at Vivriti Capital, Kunal Harisinghani, chief commercial officer of FlapKap, Ishfaq Mir, co-founder of Kashmir Box, and Dawood Khan, principal engineer at Thndr.
Raina told The Kashmir Monitor that they aim to create a physical space through “Launchpad Kashmir” and mentor budding entrepreneurs with ideation, capital, and raising investments.
“We came across some great start-up ideas by youth in Kashmir. We want to sustain this momentum and guide, coach and mentor our youth who want to build successful start-ups. There is currently a lack of mentorship for such brilliant minds and through this initiative, we want to groom the ideas,” he said.
Under this initiative, the business gurus aim to fund and incubate 24 startups this year.
“The registration for Launchpad Kashmir has begun. Raina said that it will be a four-month program for every batch and will formally begin around September,” Raina said.
He said the mentors will encourage and help with seed funding for the start-ups that cater to the global problem. “We want start-ups that are globally acceptable. So through this program, we will train our youth with such ideas, which are sustainable and have global relevance,” Raina said.
He said they had already come across some ‘wonderful’ start-up ideas by the youth during the Kashmir Startup Conclave last year.
“We must say that Kashmiris are brilliant minds and have the potential to do something extraordinary in the business sector. They only need guidance and handholding, which we will provide them,” Raina said.
Muheet Mehraj, founder of Kashmir Box and Launchpad Kashmir told The Kashmir Monitor that “Launchpad Kashmir” is a very novel concept to take start-ups to the next level.
“We have been in this field for a long time so we are aware of the challenges that entrepreneurs come across. We lack intellectual capital here due to which fresh start-ups face immense difficulties. We felt that we should have an incubation facility here and gave birth to the idea of Launchpad Kashmir. Launchpad will play a crucial role since it is driven by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs. We have the resources to take them to the next level,” he said.