Following the first day of the Microsoft CEO Summit in Mumbai at the three-day-long Microsoft Future Decoded event in India, the company announced the launch of a new program dubbed '100X100X100' which aims to accelerate the startup ecosystem in India on February 24. The initiative brings together 100 established companies as well as 100 early growth startups or SMBs. Each of these B2B SaaS startups has enterprise-ready solutions to offer and the participating enterprise companies will pledge to spend $100K over the course of 18 months on these solutions. At the launch of this program, over 50 startups were already part of it.
The program has been launched under the Microsoft for Startups initiative and it will help enterprises digitally transform rapidly by fast-tracking the adoption of SaaS solutions. Reportedly, startups with a proven track record have been inducted into this program and they will be able to provide enterprises with a wide variety of curated, ready-to-launch solutions. This will also aid in creating a profitable domestic market for Indian B2B SaaS startups. The initiative, however, is only open to startups associated with Microsoft India for Startups.
As part of the program, these early-stage startups will gain access to timely speed-contracting sessions with prospective customers at Microsoft and other customer events. The program will be conducted in conjunction with Microsoft's ecosystem partners and industry associations such as the Delhi and Mumbai Chapters of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TIE).
Satya Nadella addresses the crowd at Microsoft Future Decoded, Mumbai
Nadella, while speaking at the Microsoft Future Decoded event today, strongly emphasized, "Enterprises must start building their own tech intensity and capability". He believes that enterprises, of any size, must begin to gear towards the technology-aided future and they must "build a consistent edge and cloud model". Nadella continued to emphasize on the importance of cloud, edge computing and AI processing in the future and how most of the working force today will need to reskill or upskill in the future.
Anant Maheshwari, President, Microsoft India stated, "India has one of the largest B2B SaaS startup ecosystems in the world, and it's growing exponentially. This initiative will help build scale and create amazing opportunities of startups. Businesses can now fast-track their digital journeys through easy adoption of enterprise-grade solutions. We're excited to see the outcomes of these partnerships."