SAIF Partners launches Kickstarter, a series of events to help early-stage startups grow

Early-stage venture capital fund SAIF Partners is launching the SAIF Kickstarter on February 26 in Bengaluru. In addition to assisting early-stage startups navigate the vast ecosystem, the programme aims to help them build networks by making the right connections, and forge meaningful partnerships with relevant stakeholders.

The SAIF Kickstarter Programme will be a series of events. It will commence with a Kickstarter Fintech event, where very early-stage fintech startups will interact with fintech founders, banks, NBFCs and other ecosystem players, and forge mutually beneficial partnerships and connections. Register here for an invite.

What’s in store

Are you an early-stage fintech founder? Do you want to scale up? Or do you simply have a great startup idea, but don’t know where to begin? Then don’t miss the SAIF Kickstarter Fintech event on February 26 in Bengaluru.

The event – part of the larger Kickstarter programme by SAIF – aims to help founders and aspiring founders ‘kickstart’ their journey by learning about opportunities, potential partnerships and regulations from ecosystem stakeholders through panel discussions, fireside chats, and one-on-one interactions.

Participants will get a chance to:

1. Get access to various ecosystem stakeholders to network, build connections and forge partnerships
2. Gain insights from senior banking officials, NBFCs, ex-RBI officials, consumer credit companies etc., through panel discussions on policy and infrastructure, partnerships and navigating the ecosystem
3. Interact with founders of key fintechs like RazorPay, ClearTax and Acko, among others, and hear their success stories

“With these panels, interactions and insights, the aspiring founders can focus on building their business rather than worrying about partnerships and connections. Industry collaboration and finding the right partners is a key objective of SAIF Kickstarter”, said Alok Goel, Managing Director, SAIF Partners.

“When it comes to early-stage fintechs, right from structuring their business to understanding regulations, reaching out to banks, NBFCs, and networking, among others, they often don’t have the right capability,” he added.

The Kickstarter will also focus on core pain points such as how to reach out to ecosystem players, best practices, understanding government regulations, what kind of partnerships are to be built, nuances involved and much more.

Who should attend

SAIF Kickstarter Programme defines early-stage and young startups as those who are taking the first steps towards building their startups. It could also include founders who have just begun writing code, those who have just quit their jobs to start the business, or students with an idea. “We want to guide startups right from their ideation stage to the first institutional round,”Alok said.

Kickstarting an idea

The journey from idea to execution for any early-stage startup in any sector is a long and difficult one, given that it takes several ecosystem players to build and sustain a successful startup. Whether it is SaaS, logistics, B2B or fintech, early-stage startups often lack the expertise or an existing network to reach out to the right players in the ecosystem.

A survey of startup founders conducted by SAIF revealed that young startups said that complying with multiple regulations, navigating the vast ecosystem, and making the right connections were their biggest challenges.

“The findings of the survey and a vision to bridge the gap between relevant stakeholders and startups inspired us to start this programme”, said Alok.

“Every VC fund does its best to help its portfolio companies forge connections to help them grow. However, it takes a lot of ecosystem players to build a startup and we at SAIF thought why not bring a holistic programme to the table that will help not just startups in our portfolio but across the board,” he concluded.

SAIF Partners is focussed on early-stage seed to Series A investments and has been the first institutional cheque in startup success stories like Paytm, Swiggy, Urban Company among others.

So, if you are an aspiring founder, trying to tap the right partners and navigate the ecosystem, don’t miss out on SAIF Kickstarter Fintech on February 26 at the Leela Palace in Bengaluru. Register here for an invite.