#4 new Corporate Innovation Programs in India you Should Know About Start-ups with their agility make use of the stability of corporates to scale

When a new start-up is launched, every entrepreneur wants to set get the right mentorship and validation for his/her idea. They go looking for experienced professionals who can help them and guide them. Corporates, on the other hand, have years of experience and are looking for innovation that they can use without investing a lot of their resources in it. And this is where corporate innovation programs come in. Start-ups with their agility make use of the stability of corporates to scale.

Entrepreneur India takes a look at the latest corporate innovation programs that every entrepreneur should know

Fintech Fever Continues

This is an important one for every fintech start-up. Mastercard recently launched its innovation lab Mastercard Labs, its first such initiative in India and the 9^th in the world. The idea behind the launch is for the corporate to work with financial institutions and merchant partners and the Fintech community to identify and experiment with future technologies in areas like digital payments, data solutions, financial inclusion, alternative payments and safety and security. Giving a statement regarding the release, Tobias Puehse, Vice President, Mastercard Labs, Asia Pacific, said, "By establishing the new lab in Pune, we are looking to deepen our active collaborations with governments, issuers and businesses in India and revolutionize the market's digital payments ecosystem to drive greater acceptance and adoption of electronic payments, not just in India but around the world."

Renewed interest in Energy

Established organisations from every sector are rising up to the need for innovation. The latest to join the list is Shell India with the launch of its accelerator program Shell E4 which will be for start-ups in the energy sector. The cohort will take in start-ups in the early stage and also provide them an investment of $20,000 for being a part of the program.

Let's Get Real about Real Estate

The real estate sector has seen a boom of start-ups. From start-ups that worked as aggregators providing listings about available flats and houses to revolutionary ideas that involve Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality, real estate sector has been innovating at a rapid speed. Now, Lodha group, which has established its name as one of the premier groups in the country, has launched an accelerator program in association with Zone startups. The program called Palava accelerator, will take in startups that will further help in the development of Lodha's privately developed city Palava. They have an initial corpus fund of Rs 50 crore.

Data is the New Oil

Every innovator believes that data is the new oil. Betting on the same, the US-based data storage and management company NetApp Inc had recently announced its first cohort in India. They have already selected six start-ups for the program. According to reports, the accelerator program will be focusing on startups that work on internet of Things, cloud, big data and analytics, machine learning, virtualisation, data security, data management and storage