Over the past year, Google has been working with Indian startups like social networking site ShareChat, food delivery apps Swiggy and FreshMenu as well as utility applications UrbanClap and HealthifyMe, as a part of its global “Sand Hill“ programme, according to a top company executive.
The search giant has also partnered with 15 top venture capital firms like Accel, Sequoia, Kalaari, Inventus Captial, Lightspeed Ventures among others to identify the hottest startups in the ecosystem.
“Sand Hill is where we partner with top VCs in the world and get them to recommend highgrowth companies to us… Not very early startups, but companies which have a bit of velocity are selected and offered the best of Google’s expertise“ said Rajan Anandan, Managing Director, Google India. The chosen startups typically will have received first to third round of institutional funding.
Once selected, Google provides mentorship, early access to new products and helps in improving product design and analytics.
The programme derives its name from Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park, California which is notable for the concentration of venture capital companies. Globally, there are close to 150 startups that have been handpicked by Google and their VC partners which include the likes of Airbnb, EventBrite and Meitu.
“They offer mentorship and support across all Google products from Google AdWords, analytics, maps, Android, Play etc. We were able to talk to an Android expert, who was so great that in half an hour, we got a long list of recommendations on how to improve our app,” said Rashmi Daga, founder, FreshMenu, adding, “We even spoke to a machine learning (ML) expert who advised us on how to set up an ML architecture and use it in our platform.” FreshMenu had access to the beta version of Google’s food discovery app Areo, said Daga.
Google’s engagement with the startup ecosystem began about two years ago as the founding partners of Nasscom’s 10,000 Startups programme. India has about 5,000 startups and is ranked as the third-largest startup hub in the world.
Google also offers other kinds of support for Indian startups including a six-month mentorship programme where companies receive $20,000 of cloud credits. In addition, the investment arm of the search giant, ‘Capital G’ has already pumped money into five Indian startups including Freshdesk, Practo, CommonFloor, CarDekho and Cuemath.
Source: ET Tech