France-based start-up accelerator NUMA named 11 start-ups it has accepted for its first accelerator programme in India. It also announced a partnership with plane maker Airbus SAS, as part of its programme to engage companies in setting up innovation labs.

Present in Bengaluru, NUMA is among several accelerators which accept equity in start-ups in return for providing mentorship and working space and facilitating funding.

The start-ups selected are mostly early stage start-ups evolving their products and are from diverse sectors like publishing, education, market research and hyperlocal delivery.

Some of the start-ups are 1plify, which helps students apply to international universities, Smart Schools, which provides parents a dashboard of their childrens’ school activities, Piki, an app for collecting survey responses in under four hours, Svadhin, an eldercare solutions provider and Inkhorn Publishing, which provides on-demand printing solutions for publishers.

NUMA Paris, which accelerated 82 start-ups that have collectively raised at least £60 million so far, takes about 7% equity in return for its services. It has not decided yet on the amount of equity sought in the Bengaluru facility.

However, unlike most other accelerators which focus on specific verticals like technology, NUMA is sector-agnostic and claims to be the first such accelerator in the country.

Many accelerators are captive to either an industry or a company which means there are pre-conditions “like you have to use some company’s software or broadly be in the company’s vision,” said Naresh Narasimhan, an urban planner and angel investor.

Airbus has an accelerator programme of its own called the Airbus BizLab where start-ups and Airbus executives, dubbed “intrapreneurs” go through a six-month programme. The Airbus BizLab will be housed in the same building as the NUMA accelerator and is the third centre that the company is setting up globally, after one in Toulouse, France, and another in Hamburg, Germany.

Airbus has an engineering centre in Bengaluru with about 350 people, and is setting up the accelerator here to draw on the talent pool available, and continue its hybrid model of mentoring employees and start-ups together.

The accelerator would focus on areas that would surprise and disrupt Airbus, said Bruno Gutierres, head of Airbus BizLabs. “Analytics, gaming, fin tech (financial technology)… all these kinds of areas which could have a huge impact in our future,” he said.

Start-ups from across the world can apply to be a part of the programme here, which would start in mid-January next year.

Image Courtsey: The Hindu