Tandem Accelerator, the mobile industry focused Accelerator based out of Silicon Valley, has decided to go international with India being the first country targeted for expansion.
Tandem has opened an office in Bangalore with 3 partners looking over the India operations. Rohit Bhagat is already part of Tandem along with 2 newly appointed partners Ranjan Pai (from Manipal Group) and Mohandas Pai (Director at Infosys).
Tandem Accelerator purely focuses on mobile Industry startups and typically puts in around USD 200,000 of initial investments along with first 6 months of active on-site collaboration and guidance to the startup company.
In India, Tandem aims to invest in about 10 to 20 mobile startups in the first year of its operations.
Growth of Accelerators in India
There has been a sharp growth of startup accelerators in India over the past 18 to 24 months. According to some estimates, over 30 new accelerators have sprung up during that time period.
While some of this fierce growth in number of accelerators could contributed to herd mentality, it has definitely managed to create a support ecosystem for early-stage startups, which was not present only a few years back.
However, I have a gripe with many accelerators that are currently coming up. They bring far too less on the table and take away far too much from the startup. Most of them invest in the region of USD 10,000 to USD 15,000 and expect 10 percent or more from the company equity. In addition to that, they hardly add any value to the Entrepreneur (which according to me is the biggest aspect of being part of an accelerator)
On the other hand, Accelerators like Tandem, who are not only Industry focused, but also put in sizeable amount of initial investment in the startup, make huge positive difference to the success of these startups.
So, if you are an Indian mobile startup, Tandem would be an excellent accelerator that you should be a part of!
Being a start-up enthusiast myself, it’s a happy news… but i am still skeptical weather Tandem would be looking to add value to the entrepreneur or gain concepts for their system that is being replaced by secure mobile transaction mediums.