Growth opportunities bringing European start-ups to India: Juliane Frommter
HYDERABAD: EU-India Innocenter, an initiative funded by the European Union, brings back its research and innovation framework programme ‘Horizon 2020’. The programme is back in India for the second time to promote innovation, sustainability, and growth in key sectors like health-tech, logistics, mobility, and deep tech.
The week-long programme being held in Hyderabad and Bengaluru from April 17-22 will see participation of 8 high-impact European tech startups – Cast AI, AgeVolt, AEInnova, Spotlite, BOSAQ, Resistomap, Foliomax, and Newborn Solutions – ready to explore and scale in the Indian market.
The programme provides a strategic network of ecosystem facilitators from India and many European countries, including government representatives from both sides. With India being one of the largest growing markets in the world and the EU being one of India's largest trading partners and foreign investors, this initiative aims at further deepening the EU-Indian Partnership through the innovation corridor.
Speaking on the sidelines of ‘Horizon 2020’ Juliane Frommter, Programme Head at EU-India Innocenter, said that EU-India Innocenter’s goal is to create sustainable, mutually beneficial collaborations between Europe and India by hand holding European startups in their exploration and growth in India.
“Since 2021, we have matched over 40 European Scaleups with more than 280 Indian companies and India-based MNCs, and are grateful to our ecosystem partners for their consistent support to the programme,” she added.
On India being the choice for European start-ups to set shop, Juliane said “The country becomes an obvious choice because it is the best growing economy in the world to invest in at the moment when China is losing confidence of foreign investors even as many companies are moving away from the country.”
“Most importantly, considering India’s wide talentpool and scope for introduction of technology across sectors, the growth opportunity in India becomes lucrative for the European companies,” she reiterates.
Juliane, who has been instrumental in building networks for start-up incubator T-Hub, says that healthcare, lifesciences, logistics and agritech start-ups looking to set up in India, have Hyderabad as their first option to set up their businesses.
“People at T-Hub, policy makers of the state of Telangana are more open to discussions and the start-up ecosystem in Hyderabad is more structured that other Indian cities, making it the top choice for the European companies,” says Juliane about why Hyderabad has been chosen to host the programme.
Since EU-India Innocenter’s inception, the programme has had over 4,000 innovative European startups in its pipeline. To date, 473 companies have been screened, with over 90 graduating the preparation training and 50 startups in the process of market validation.
