Revolutionizing entrepreneur upskilling in emerging markets

Capria announces the release of a revolutionary support training platform for incubators and accelerators as well as their thousands of startups in emerging markets globally.

October 22, Bangalore. Capria, the world’s first accelerator for incubators and impact Funds announced the completion of its first cohort of global incubators and accelerators through the Capria VentureBasecamp acceleration program. Twenty-two incubators and accelerators from India, Africa and Latin America participated in the 5-day introductory intensive. Participants included private and government funded incubators as well as large organizations of incubators and accelerators including NASSCOM in India and the Ministry of Industry of the Brazilian Government.

Graduating participants have now been equipped with the first comprehensive, evaluation, structured training, monitoring and skill-building program created to scale incubation to thousands of new startups in emerging markets globally.

The incubation and accelerator programs in emerging markets are seeing an increased active interest from governments, funders and ecosystem builders. However, despite tens-of-millions in funding support, only 5-8% of startups in emerging market incubators are funded, compared to 40 to 70% of incubators and accelerators in mature markets. The root of this problem comes from the limited depth of experience of entrepreneurs, their incubators and mentor networks in newly emerging markets as compared to more mature markets.

Capria’s research shows that there are three primary reasons for the low success of startups in new emerging market incubators and accelerators: First, incubators and accelerators do not have access to high-quality support to develop process-based entrepreneurial support programs, often resorting to offering little more than shared office space for startups. Second, there is a dearth of resources available for incubators and accelerators to train their entrepreneurs on the skills necessary to address the 12 critical success areas necessary for business growth. Third, while many of these programs adhere to mentor-driven incubation and acceleration programs, the ecosystem of experienced mentors and advisors that play a key role in mature markets doesn’t exist yet in new entrepreneurial ecosystems. Capria has spent four years developing a comprehensive solution that it released in Beta on Oct 1. The program was met with resounding appreciation and acclaim.

“There are thousands of new incubators and accelerators springing up everywhere in the world,” stated Marcos Vinicius de Souza, from the Ministry Industry, Foreign Trade and Services, Brazil. “In Brazil alone, where I come from, there are hundreds of incubators. But the key result, fundability of graduating startups, is dismal. This is what VentureBasecamp changes.” Prasad Menon, from CIBA Mumbai, equated VentureBasecamp to a startup university saying that he understood the importance of having an "investable startup" approach and creating a structured program that would be unique to every startup. “Capria VentureBasecamp has the potential to drastically change the entrepreneurship landscape by improving the quality of incubator programs,” said Lydiah Muya from the Kenyan accelerator program Ongoza. Another incubator manager predicted that VentureBasecamp would be established as the gold standard for incubation programs. Using technology, a customized assessment platform, an adaptive training and up-skilling curriculum designed around each participant, a state-of-the-art video training platform and an individualized dashboard monitoring platform, the VentureBasecamp system takes variability and experience of an incubator out of the equation.

Entrepreneurs at partner incubators and accelerators take the VentureBasecamp Quantum assessment, based on which, a recommendation engine provides a customized work plan for each participant. The platform then delivers practical entrepreneurial training and skills-building through a combination of extensive video training and accompanying training workshops taught by partner incubators through a detailed train-the-trainer guide. This way, any incubator, no matter how experienced, can deliver a consistent deep, meaningful and tested training process for their participating startups.

“Training entrepreneurial startups and growing businesses in emerging markets is very different than venture-backed startups in Silicon Valley,” Daniel Kranzler, Capria Senior Partner in charge of the VentureBasecamp program stated. “There are a dozen significant differences that must be bridged in emerging markets and there must be a way to scale from 10’s to hundreds of startups using today’s technology.” Mr. Kranzler and his partners bring over 4 decades of experience as entrepreneurs, tech pioneers and venture investors. “This is a complex problem, which requires a comprehensive multi-faceted solution.” Kranzler added. “We have spent 4 years trialling, testing and packaging 45+ years of experience into a fully scalable platform. But technology alone doesn’t solve the problem. There must be a combination of technology and practical skills-building.” This is why the program is delivered through existing Support Intermediaries like incubators, accelerators and venture funds. The Capria VentureBasecamp program teaches Support Intermediaries to administer the program to drive startups towards focussed success.

Capria has worked in close partnership with several prominent ecosystem partners and funders. The UK’s Department for International Development’s, Impact Programme has provided guidance and key funding for the release of VentureBasecamp. Another supporter of the VentureBasecamp program is Shell Foundation. “VBC is successfully addressing a critical pain point faced by SME funds and incubators in emerging markets,” added Mairi Tejani of Shell Foundation. “The provision of tailored, high quality and low-cost business support presents a unique opportunity for funds and incubators to improve performance and create more investor ready enterprises.”

The program begins with an extensive 50-hour training workshop for the Support Intermediaries (SIs) themselves, teaching them to “Think Like an Investor,” and “Act Like an Entrepreneur”. It is followed up with comprehensive one-on-one training and support for each incubator, accelerator or Fund, in addition to new programs, materials and workshop training on an ongoing basis.

“Capria VentureBasecamp has a thorough understanding of the ground zero reality which only people who really work on-the-ground understand. Everything was so real, so practical and so realistic…we were looking for exactly this kind of knowledge because we are in process of revamping our program,” Dr. Sunil Shekhawat from NASSCOM 10,000 Startups stated. “Capria VentureBasecamp contains decades of learning in a simple tool, in an incredible effort to map and organize human behavior. It feels like 'coming back from the future’ after lots of years of practice, with the power of taking accelerators/incubator to a whole new level of efficiency and results,” added Thiago Sakamoto, from Hospital das Clinicas da FMUSP in Brazil. “Capria VentureBasecamp might be YCombinator circa 2007-2008 for the incubator/accelerator ecosystem. This is a different OS for the incubator ecosystem,” added Bharani Setlur from Anthill Ventures in India.

Support for VentureBasecamp has come from a variety of global leaders in the startup sector. They include USAID, UK Aid’s Department For International Development (DFID), Shell Foundation, and participatory support from NASSCOM 10K, NITI Aayog’s Atal Innovation Mission, Kerala Startup Mission, Goa Innovation Council, Centre for Business Incubation and Acceleration (CIBA), a-Idea and many others. Capria is continuing to engage and partner with support organizations and funders globally, to improve and distribute its program.

About Capria VentureBasecamp

VentureBasecamp, a Capria LLC initiative, is a highly scalable, interactive program specifically designed to bridge the gap in training and resources available to emerging startup ecosystems and to catalyse more investment-ready startups and small-growing businesses. VentureBasecamp trains incubator managers and other key ecosystem players to structure and optimize strong programs of entrepreneurial support and provides a full spectrum of skills training, tools, and resources entrepreneurs need to build sustainable, investable ventures. Developed by veteran entrepreneurs with over 40 years of startup experience in over 250 startups that have generated over $20 billion in market capitalization, VentureBasecamp successfully piloted in India through Unitus Seed Fund with backing by USAID and recently launched the beta program with backing by UKAid and Shell Foundation. The program is focused on partnering with and training over 1,500 incubator programs to support over 35,000 ventures worldwide through 2020.

About Capria

Capria Ventures is a global financial services innovator investing in the “missing middle” finance opportunity for small and growing businesses in high growth emerging markets. Capria manages multiple investment funds and partners with a growing global network of local fund managers, with over USD $260 million under management collectively. All fund managers in the Capria Network are focused on delivering superior profits to investors along with social and environmental impact at scale. By 2028, Capria aims to unlock over USD $3.5 billion in capital by 2021 and positively impact over 40 million lives in alignment with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Capria has offices in Seattle, Nairobi, and Bangalore. More at: http://capria.vc and http://unitus.vc

About DFID

The Department for International Development (DFID) leads the UK’s work to end extreme poverty. DFID is tackling the global challenges of our time including poverty and disease, mass migration, insecurity and conflict. DFID’s work is building a safer, healthier, more prosperous world for people in developing countries and in the UK too.

About Shell Foundation

“Shell Foundation is an independent UK-registered charity established by the Shell Group in 2000 to create and scale new solutions to global development challenges. We apply business thinking to major social and environmental issues linked to the energy sector – and seek to leverage the skills and networks of Shell where possible to deliver greater development impact.
Shell Foundation works with a small number of entrepreneurial partners to identify the market failures that underpin many of the world’s problems and co-creates new social enterprises to solve them. We provide patient funding, extensive business support and access to networks to help pioneers to validate new models, achieve financial independence and to expand across geographies.”

Name of the company - Capria VentureBasecamp
Full postal address - Capria Ventures,
220 2nd Ave South
Seattle, WA 98104 USA
Contacts / Press contacts - Shreyas W Ghuge (shreyasg@capria.vc)

This release was published on openPR.