GFSA programme: Google’s handholding aiding startups to find their feet

The Google for Start-ups Accelerator (GFSA) programme started in 2018 and is focussed on supporting startups solve problems using advanced technology like AI/ML or data in sectors like healthcare, education, finance, media & entertainment, gaming, and enterprise. “Our mission at Google for Startups India is to help young startup teams focus on their key problems while we empower them with lessons from Google,” says Paul Ravindranath G, programme manager, Developer Relations & Head of Google Accelerator at Google India. “The idea is to minimise spending resources on solved problems, focus on the main business challenge and shorten their time to market.”

Recently, the firm announced the sixth cohort of the GFSA India, chosen from over 700 applicants. “The selected startups – with 35% led by women – comprise a mix of B2B and B2C startups between Seed and Series A stages,” he says. Financial Express spoke to the spokespersons for four of the startups featured in the fifth batch of the GFSA programme, about their business and how the Google initiative has aided their growth.

Goals101
Goals101 is a transaction behavioural intelligence (TBI) company that accelerates business growth for banks with the use of AI and ML. It is one of the fastest growing Big-Data platforms (the Alpha Platform) in the region. “At Goals101, we are into making the banking experience more delightful and relevant,” says Visham Sikand, the founder & MD. Talking about GFSA, he says, “we learnt immensely from Google experts across different domains. The GFSA programme provided invaluable learnings from their cross-functional and experienced teams.”
Hypd
Hypd is aimed at bridging the gap between getting excited and buying. Founded in 2020 by Ashwarya Garg and Akshay Bhatnagar, Hypd Store publishes content for D2C brands. According to the two co-founders, GFSA helps you become a better version of yourself. “Within the first few days, everyone felt like a natural extension of our own team. They definitely go by their motto – Create. Design. Code. Build. For Everyone. We were challenged to do things, to start with perfecting the experience for our first beta users and then scale it for the next million.”

MedCords
In May 2017, MedCords started its operations at Kota district in Rajasthan. Since then, its ecosystem comprising two Android apps – “Aayu app” for families and “Sehat Sathi app” for medical stores and a doctor web portal (doctors.medcords.com) have been widely adopted by the semi-urban and rural markets in India. Nikhil Baheti, co-founder, Product & Analytics, Aayu (by MedCords), remarks: “GFSA helped us identify gaps and provided inputs about our GTM strategy and feedback on our product’s UX through top mentors. They even helped us optimise our Google Ads spend by analysing our account.”

Zypp Electric
“The best part about the GFSA programme is the tech depth and mentoring you get on AI, ML roadmap; UI, UX development and many other technology challenges, which are not easily available anywhere else,” says Akash Gupta, co-founder & CEO, Zypp Electric. The venture is India’s leading tech-enabled EV-as-a-service platform. It was founded in 2017 with a mission to make India carbon-free by using an ecosystem of electric vehicles and EV-based technology and helps make last-mile logistics sustainable and emission free.