Startup India Initiative at Invest India — the national investment promotion and facilitation agency that helps investors looking for investment opportunities and options in India — has partnered with Shiprocket, an e-commerce enablement platform, to build direct-to-consumer (D2C) 2.0 together through a three-month accelerator programme for D2C startups, called Rocketfuel D2C Accelerator.
According to a press release, the programme will help accelerate D2C and e-commerce startups who have delivered early success and on-ground impact with homegrown products.
D2C startups can apply for the Rocketfuel D2C Accelerator hosted exclusively on the Startup India portal. Shiprocket will be offering Rs 1 lakh in cash grants to each of the shortlisted startups, in addition to the Rs 50,000 provided in shipping credits on an immediate basis and provide an opportunity to get investments upto Rs 50 lakh from Shiprocket and its fund partners.
During the three-month accelerator programme, Shiprocket will support the D2C startups with top-tier privileges for logistics and e-commerce services, providing shipping credits that can be used on its platform. Additionally, startups will gain access to D2C Verse, a pan-India D2C community of key startups and investors, and receive one-on-one mentorship from the leading minds of the industry. The shortlisted startups will also benefit immensely from Startup India’s guidance and pan-India reach, a press release said.
Applications for the program are open till September 15, 2022, and the results will be declared on September 28, 2022.
Launched in 2017, Shiprocket provides a technology stack to help retailers integrate their shopping websites on Shopify, Magento, WooCommerce, Zoho, and others with the platform’s multi-carrier API to manage orders, prints, and shipping labels.
