Gurgaon: In a strategic move, India’s leading business accelerator firm, India Accelerator (IA) and PVR Cinema joined hands together to boost innovative startups working to bring in disruptions in the Media & Entertainment space. As part of the partnership, both the companies will jointly offer a sixteen-week long accelerator programme to a cohort of 5 to 7 seed stage startups operating in the same space along with supporting them with necessary amount of funding.
Through this partnership, the selected startups will get access to PVR-IA’s technological and business infrastructure, mentoring, and network-building opportunities, culminating in a Demo day attended by Corporates, VCs, Mentors and other partners, as well as external investors.
Sharing his perspectives on the partnership, Mr Ashish Bhatia, Founder and MD at India Accelerator, said: “In continuation with our commitment to strengthen and tap-into the nation’s startup ecosystem, we always look forward to new ideas. There are lots of unidentified and unexplored gaps in the movie watching experience right from selecting the right show and ticket booking to watching cinema and coming back. This is where innovative startups can bring changes by increasing the efficiency in existing operations.”
The partnership is looking for startups working in the field of Cinema/ theater based gaming, events, classrooms, conferences booking, planning, scheduling and delivering, Movies based short videos, quizzes, gaming platform to build engagement with actors, fans, community. Cinema based shopping, in video advertising and customer analytics, among others.
Further speaking on the partnership, Mr. Kamal Gianchandani, Chief Strategy Officer, PVR, stated: “Businesses need to pivot in these changing times. It’s more so for the media and entertainment sector. PVR, through the accelerator program, is in search of ideas or technologies which can improve and revolutionize the movie going experience, making it unique and friction-less. We need to add value to our capacity building along with optimizing our resources in these challenging times. Given the track record of India Accelerator in flourishing meaningful startups, we are looking forward to a strong positive outcome.”
In order to successfully run the programme, both the parties agree to appoint one Selection & Execution Board consisting of representatives from both parties. This board would be responsible to carry out & manage the milestones set for the vertical such as Screening & sourcing of right startups, Onboarding & acceleration of startups, mentoring board formation, Ensuring startups meeting the pre-set growth milestones and Marketing & promotion of the Vertical, among others.
