1Crowd and RBL bank host ‘The Big Pitch’ competition for startups in Bangalore

by Shrutee K/DNS

01 December 2016, 1Crowd and RBL Bank hosted the finals of ‘The Big Pitch’ competition at Christ University’s sprawling campus in Bangalore. Ten selected start-ups were called on stage to pitch to a panel of judges for admission to ‘Inspire!’, 1Crowd’s first incubation Centre, and for priority consideration to be funded via 1Crowd’s equity crowd funding platform.

Anil Gudibande, co-founder and Director at 1Crowd said “At 1Crowd, we are determined to identify and nurture startups with potential for large scale disruption in sectors where they operate. ‘The Big Pitch’ served as a platform to identify such startups and we are determined to provide winners with the right resources, mentorship and support to realize their true potential. These startups will benefit from 1Crowd’s unique ethos of working as partners in growth rather than being merely financial investors”.

The three winners of the incubation contest were offered admission to ‘Inspire!’, a state of the art incubation centre hosted at Christ University’s Faculty of Engineering, which is powered by 1Crowd. The incubation program will leverage 1Crowd’s strong linkages with industry to provide startups unprecedented access to a wide range of corporates across India. This program is designed to help startups scale up rapidly by providing focused mentorship, running pilot projects, enhancing market reach and also providing seed funding. 

This maiden competition generated significant interest in the startup community across the country. A digital campaign for ‘The Big Pitch’ spanning barely four weeks yielded a deluge of applications from early stage startups from across industry verticals. Winners included a range of startups from the domains of fintech, bio-tech, artificial intelligence based systems to community platforms.  

About 1Crowd : 1Crowd is a funding platform for early stage startups which aims to span the entire value chain from incubation to pre-Series A funding. The company was founded by a team of senior bankers and private equity professionals with extensive experience in financial services. 1Crowd has invested in 6 startups in the last few months.