20 startup leaders graduate from 'Google for Startups Accelerator-India Women Founders' programme

Google on Tuesday in a blog post announced that 20 women startup leaders graduated from its 'Google for Startups Accelerator-India Women Founders'.

Google had launched the programme last year to help startups begin, grow and build. The three-month programme focused on women founders that included curriculum as well as engagement opportunities, addressing areas such as access to capital, access to network, mentorship, hiring challenges, among others, the blog post stated.

"We are thrilled to share that the first cohort of the Accelerator has now successfully concluded. In embracing their roles of being both leaders and learners, every one of the 20 members of the cohort have deeply inspired us, and we are excited about the wide-ranging impact they will bring to the broader startup ecosystem," the blog post stated.

The participating startup founders said the accelerator programme was a game-changer, helped them have a clearer vision, and with having the other founders on board it also helped develop a sense of family.

Srishty Jain, CoLLearn, said that participating in the accelerator programme was an inflection point in her startup's journey. "First and foremost, our vision changed. We started thinking beyond India and about how to cater to global citizens. It has also given us an approach for structured thinking for product launches, scaling up, digital marketing, all of which have helped us immensely as a team and set the course for our next phase of growth," she said.

Reiterating the same, Aakanksha Varude of OPOP Audio also said programme helped her connect to a diverse community of like-minded entrepreneurs. "What we also value about the programme was that it enabled us to go down to our roots, straight to fixing the leaks in our pipeline," she said.

The acclerator programme did not just help the founders develop collaborations, but several of them have also become other's customers.

Google is now looking at opening applications for the next cohort. "We will continue to support initiatives focused on supporting the growth and transformation of women-led startups as part of our larger effort towards improving the representation of women across different sections of India’s digitally-trained workforce," the blog post said.