IncubateHub's solution to grow CVC market in Asia with nine thematic programmes

Homegrown open innovation platform IncubateHub plans to launch nine thematic demand-led programs for startups and corporates, to co-create solutions and go-to-market strategies in partnership with India’s most prominent early-stage investor, Venture Catalysts, and leading accelerator fund 9Unicorns.
IncubateHub, which witnessed a 4X growth in participation from corporates, startups and investors in 2021, plans to go global this year. The company also plans to launch specific solutions for the growing CVC market in Asia, to assist corporates in funding startups, which are strategic to the company’s 10-year plan.

Founded in 2016 by industry veterans and startup evangelists, Rajiv Mukherjee, Uday Vipra and Pradeep V, IncubateHub aids corporate professionals, startups and other ecosystem players across services. F rom using white-labelled portals for open innovation management to getting a group of dedicated analysts, community managers and program managers, it drives corporate accelerator programs.

Milestones galore
With just three corporate programs in 2016, IncubateHub has carried out over 480 open innovation programs with 76+ companies and has conducted over 986+ paid pilot projects.

In 2021, the platform onboarded 86 startup partners and helped them secure `280 million worth of paid pilot projects, among which six have progressed to be long-term vendor contracts. Other milestones include launching Asia’s first enterprise SaaS (software as a service) platform for managing open innovation programs, managing global corporate programs for marquee logos like Mondelez, P&G, Telstra in Singapore, Philipines, Australia, Egypt, Eastern Europe, Latin America and North America.

Talking about its global plans, Rajiv Mukherjee, co-founder, IncubateHub, said, “Open innovation is the future. We are helping the ecosystem’s stakeholders work on ideas, test, pivot and launch products and services that are globally scalable. We want to be the largest such platform in the world. The corporate innovation market is estimated at a little over $200 million and is expected to reach approximately $750 million by 2023, growing at 27 per cent CAGR. IncubateHub is well-positioned to capitalise on the immense potential in this sector.”

He added that open innovation is gaining popularity among corporates as they find it more profitable for multiple reasons — including having access to the right talent, synergies between internal and external innovations, potential employer branding opportunities, low costs of experimentation, increased competitive advantage and the creation of new revenue streams.

Talking about the benefits, David Jakubovic, director R&D, Open Innovation Asia, P&G, said, “While global P&G teams were already working with IncubateHub on digital innovation, we wanted to conduct a pilot program on sustainable packaging. The quick turnaround time and a highly responsive support team ensured success throughout the engagement.”

Dr Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, co-founder, Venture Catalysts, also sounded optimistic about the rise of IncubateHub. “We have seen a rise of CVC, especially in the Asian market which is a huge boost. IncubateHub will further establish and strengthen the position of startups, accelerate product development, expand its footprint with existing customers, and scale its go-to-market organisation,” he said.

IncubateHub launched four solutions for corporates last year to address specific needs of corporate innovation teams, to accelerate their build/co-create, rent/licence, buy/invest decisions. Its offerings enable its partners to stay ahead of the curve through intrapreneurship prog rams, corporate accelerator programs, corporate venturing programs, pilot solution showcase by mature startups, hiring and crowdsourcing hackathons, etc.