Amazon and Invest India recently announced Slurrp Farm, Sirona Hygiene, and Wellbeing Nutrition as the top three winners of the Amazon Global Selling Propel Startup Accelerator programme. The winning startups won a total of $50,000 from Amazon in an equity-free grant.
Earlier in March, Amazon had announced 10 startups as finalists for its accelerator programme — launched in partnership with Startup India — which aims to help emerging Indian businesses and startups get access to customers across the world through Amazon’s ecommerce exports programme.
Representational Image
According to an official statement, the top 10 finalists presented their business proposition to the jury, including Kanwaljit Singh (Founder and Managing Partner, Fireside Ventures), Sakshi Chopra (Managing Director, Sequoia India), Abhijeet Muzumdar (Head of Amazon Smbhav Venture Fund and Corporate Development at Amazon), and Aastha Grover (Head, Startup India Hub and Invest India).
The accelerator programme had received over 500 entries from across the country.
The entries were evaluated by the panel on several parameters, including business idea, scalability, and strength of the business plan/model, business metrics in launched markets, and founding team credentials, among others.
“We created the Amazon Global Selling Startup Accelerator with a vision to help take the local expertise and innovation global. We are truly excited about the innovation and passion we have seen and would like to congratulate all the winners. We worked with partners like Invest India, Sequoia Capital India, Fireside Ventures, and others to attract some of the best minds in the country and provide them a springboard to create global consumer brands from India,” Amit Agarwal, Global Senior VP and Country Head, Amazon India, said.
Deepak Bagla, MD and CEO, Invest India, said the programme aims at tapping the vast potential of emerging businesses and MSMEs to make an indelible mark in global markets.
As part of the accelerator programme, Amazon constituted a mentorship board consisting of Amazon leaders from India and across the world, VCs, and senior leaders from Invest India, who engaged with emerging brands to provide them tailored resources, one-to-one mentorship on the global demand patterns, and insights on building successful exports businesses through ecommerce.
It also hosted open virtual mentorship sessions focused on peer learning by inviting veteran entrepreneurs and members from its mentorship board for startups to network and learn from the existing ecosystem.
The Winners
Here are the top three winners of the Amazon Global Selling Propel Startup Accelerator programme:
Slurrp Farm
Gurugram-based healthy food brand Slurrp Farm ensures a positive impact on young children’s health outcomes. Founded in 2016 by Shauravi Malik, Umang Bhattacharya, and Meghana Narayan, it offers nutritious food mixes, including cereals, porridges, pancake and cake mixes, and alternative sugars like jaggery and coconut sugar.
“We are thrilled to have won the Amazon Global Selling Propel prize because it feels like a first step in the direction of global domination. Every single brand that was part of the Accelerator is doing amazing, wonderful things so we couldn’t be more proud to have emerged the winner. The Propel programme, set up by Amazon and Startup India, is really unique in how it provides mentorship from incredible thought leaders who have built global brands, how it cares for all the companies and entrepreneurs it selects for the programme, and how it nurtures and enables them to grow bigger and better. Thank you!” the co-founders said.
Sirona Hygiene
Founded in 2015 by Deep and Mohit Bajaj, New Delhi-based Sirona is a feminine hygiene brand that launched products such as stand-and-pee device (PeeBuddy) for women, natural period pain patches for menstrual cramps (Sirona), natural-coloured pads, menstrual cups, and tampons.
“Being selected as Top 3 from millions of sellers is a great honour. Though more than the award, we are thankful to Amazon for creating this ’empowering’ platform through which we, at SIRONA, can take our feminine hygiene focused innovations to women around the world at the click of a button,” the co-founders said.
Wellbeing Nutrition
Launched in 2019 by Avnish Chhabria, Mumbai-based Wellbeing Nutrition offers organic, certified, plant-based vitamins, and wholefood nutrition supplements. Its products are available for six major lifestyle areas, including daily wellness, sleep, headaches, gut health, hair loss, and skincare. The startup is now looking to enter the US, UK, UAE, and EU markets.
“From learning the intricacies of the trade to being mentored by the best minds in the country, well-curated by Amazon, has helped sharpen our focus on being customer first across all aspects of the sale cycle. It’s been 45 days since we launched in the USA, and the handholding by the team has been beyond our expectations and helped us scale grow 50 percent week on week,” the startup said.
