Top two startups will receive a one-week market access trip to Quebec in Canada and access to the Amazon Launchpad Program

Zone Startups India has announced 30 women entrepreneurs for the third edition of its 6-week long startup accelerator programme, empoWer.

This edition of empoWer will have two tracks — ‘Technology for Business’ and ‘Technology for Social Good’, comprising 15 entrepreneurs each. The selected entrepreneurs will go through mentoring sessions, workshops, industry connects, case studies, peer-to-peer sessions, investor connects and a bootcamp.

The top three women entrepreneurs from each track will receive an equity-free seed fund of INR 10 lakh (US$14,000). The top two startups will also receive a one-week market access trip to Quebec, Canada and access to the Amazon Launchpad Program.

The 30 entrepreneurs were selected from a total of 285 applications from across India.

Ajay Ramasubramaniam, Director (India), Zone Startups, said: “When we were starting out in 2016, empoWer was an experiment to gauge the need of a programme focussed on women entrepreneurs. This year, we have spun off a parallel track, so that we are able to accommodate a higher number of women entrepreneurs leveraging tech for social good. We aim to expand the programme year on year.”

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Launched in April 2016, empoWer has so far groomed 35 women entrepreneurs and disbursed INR 1.2 crore (US$170,000) in grants over the past two years. Post programme, a large majority of startups have raised further funding amounting a cumulative of INR 35 crore (US$495,000), according to a press statement.

Zone Startups is international brand of technology accelerators and early-stage venture funds managed by Ryerson Futures, Canada (part of Ryerson University Network). In 2014, Zone Startups India launched its accelerator programme in Mumbai in partnership between Ryerson Futures, BSE Institute and Simon Fraser University- Vancouver. Since then, the programme has launched many initiatives to support startups from different sectors and geographies. empoWer is one of the flagship initiatives, which focuses on gender diversity, supported women led startups in technology space.

Below is the list of entrepreneurs and the startup they represent:

Technology for Business track

Technology for Social Good track

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