October 30: A three-day startup summit began with a cultural exchange programme in Kathmandu on October 29. The opening session of the Nepal-India Startup Summit organised by ESOS Global Pvt Ltd saw the participation of around 10 startups from Nepal and six from India.

On Monday, the second dayAnchor of the summit, these startups will be pitching their ideas to the investors from India as well to the Nepali investors. The Indian startup enabler platform Chatur Ideas will also sign an agreement regarding the partnership with ESOS Global during the event. Chatur Ideas has till now worked with 650 startups from India, US, Singapore, as well as Canadian startups and has 1500 investors from India and the Silicon Valley.

“This programme is a very good initiative of cross-border integration in terms of startups,” said Devesh Chawla, founder and CEO of Chatur Ideas. He shared that after interacting with the entrepreneurs here in Nepal, he felt that the startups here have a lot of potential but there is no ecosystem to support them in proper way.

“What they need is a lot of mentoring, some funds and some guidance, which can help them move to the next orbit,” he shared.

Similarly, Miten Mehta, co-founder and CIO of Spinta, a global accelerator headquartered at the US in the Silicon Valley and having presence in different places including Singapore, Bangkok, Bangalore, Washington DC said that the summit is a very good opportunity for India to actually know its neighbor, Nepal.

“Usually, India is always slow to respond to market opportunities in comparison to China, which is very quick to explore the neighboring countries. So, this is a strategic opportunity for India to take a big step to penetrate and invest in Nepal,” he said. In terms of criteria, Mehta shared that the investors in India would prefer the companies which are focusing on cross-border market for the investment. 

“The Nepali startups should not only focus on the domestic market, but they should target other markets including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan and few other similar South Asian countries,” Mehta said.  He shared that Spinta would love to open its accelerator here and work with the government and financial institutions such as banks. Mehta and Chawla urged the government of Nepal to form startup policy for the proper growth of startups.