Creating unicorns in UAE: 8 Indian startups showcase their products in Dubai – News

This comes after Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared January 16 as National Entrepreneurship Day last year to promote entrepreneurship and business development

Nine teams from India participated in the presentation at the National Launch Day event on 16 January 2023 at the Taj Hotel in Dubai. Photo: Rahul Gujjar

The UAE’s sovereign wealth fund is starting to look optimistically at India’s startup ecosystem, as both countries are nurturing more unicorns to grow.

This was the dominant sentiment at National Entrepreneurship Day and ELEVATE pitch series, evidenced by the ‘India-UAE Startup Corridor’, which aims to target at least 50 verified start-ups in India and UAE with a mission to bring 10 of them to the market by 2025 Breed into unicorns.

At least eight Indian start-ups took advantage of the UAE’s global expansion and used it as a springboard to showcase their cases at the Taj Hotel in Dubai on Monday while looking to raise funds for their fledgling ventures.

This follows Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s declaration last year of January 16 as National Entrepreneurship Day to promote entrepreneurship and business development.

Meanwhile, with India’s G20 presidency and start-ups serving as the engine of innovation-driven economic recovery, the country has also set up a dedicated start-up group called “Start-up 20”.

Dr. Aman Puri, Consul General of India in Dubai, at the National Entrepreneurship Day event at the Taj Hotel in Dubai, January 16, 2023.

Speaking at the event, Dr. Aman Puri, Consul General of India in Dubai, said, “We see the UAE’s sovereign wealth fund based in Abu Dhabi and Dubai looking at the startup ecosystem in India, and it is interesting for us to participate together. As Part of the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), decided to start the India-UAE Startups business with several projects to identify 50 promising startups from India, bring them here and upload them so that by 2025, At least 10 of them became unicorns.”

Dr Puri emphasized that the UAE offers a gateway to engage with communities in the Middle East, Africa and the CIS due to its strategic location, ease of doing business, speed of doing business utilizing global supply chains and its “huge investable sovereign wealth”. gateways” that together can contribute to an extraordinary transformation of the global economy.

He added, “Recently, we have heard that the announcement of the D33 program is part of the transformation of Dubai’s economy, which has been endorsed by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of the UAE. Approval of Dubai. It (says) it will try to create 30 unicorns here in Dubai in the next 10 years. India has huge talent, capital and a large number of famous institutions like IITs, IIMs and other engineering colleges and institutes of excellence across the country, Brilliant and motivated people are cultivated. So it becomes a complementary and synergistic relationship where together we can create unicorns, not only in this region but in the global market. As we create unicorns, we also In improving system efficiency, bringing innovation, and fast-tracking the adoption of new business models.”

K Kalimuthu, Consul (Economy, Trade and Commerce), Consulate General of India

Elaborating on how this will help find innovative solutions to global challenges, he said: “We are all here to tell the world that it is recovering from a once-in-a-lifetime health crisis that has had a devastating economic impact. . A huge amount of economic output has been wiped out, and we need to rebuild our supply chains and address these challenges. It is important that we cooperate and collaborate so that we can move forward.”

Ananth Narayanan, founder of Mensa Brands and former CEO of Myntra, noted how such initiatives create an ecosystem to encourage interaction among startups, investors, incubators, corporates and entrepreneurs to scale their businesses and strengthen their presence in position in the global market. He said, “I think there’s a vibrant technology ecosystem (range) here. For example, we have consumer brands, but they need to run on technology platforms. So, we’re looking for interesting technology partners who can actually Help us to scale. It can be artificial intelligence, it can be machine learning. We have our own brand here called Catch On, which is incorporated in Dubai and sold in the US and India. So I believe India and UAE There can be more collaboration in tech. I think there’s an interesting place here to really build tech ecosystems like engineering, product, operations, especially because of the geography where people serve the world from left to right.”

While fostering deeper collaboration between the Indian and UAE start-up ecosystems and furthering the momentum generated by the interaction, the evening also saw proposals from innovative Indian tech-led start-ups across various sectors.

Sravani Rao, CTO and co-founder of Quantic, which aims to empower security teams in core industries such as construction, mining, oil and gas, manufacturing, representatives. We are looking forward to expanding as we are currently only operating in India. We are working hard to find more opportunities in Dubai and UAE. Our clients are exclusively from the oil and gas industry, especially retail. Our products are The area of ​​(worker) safety. Safety is much more stringent here. So we are looking for collaborations and partnerships and trying to expand our team while capitalizing on any possible market opportunities.”

Jai Narain Misra, CEO of Odwen Technologies, another attendee, asserted: “We are trying to enter the international market. We need the help of investors. This is a potential market for us, but it is also a new market for us . We are looking at business development in this part of the world.”