Google India revealed the introduction of the ‘Playbook for startups to face the Covid-19 challenge’ on Wednesday (June 17) to support Indian Startups to tackle the pandemic that has had a significant effect on customer behavior and other market trends around the globe.
It has been launched in collaboration with Blume Ventures, Prime Venture Partners, Matrix Partners India, Wysa Mental Health App, and Dunzo Hyperlocal Startup.
The playbook is a compilation of practical suggestions for the founders to address both the strategic and operational challenges of the pandemic. It also includes handling burns, finding potential streams of sales, running staff, and operating from home and creative vision about the future of start-ups.
In fact, the Playbook would also contain case studies of Wysa and Dunzo, which witnessed an increase in popularity owing to the pandemic. Notably, Wysa was part of the Google Startup (GFS) Accelerator Program’s first batch, whilst also Google is an investor in Dunzo.
Google is now expanding the Google Accelerator for Start-up (GFS) to include startups that use cutting edge technology, including AI and Machine Learning. Google India has partnered with all around 60 companies in different groups and has launched the program in 2018. Such start-ups use technology to solve problems in the fields of sanitation, health, agriculture, fintech, and sustainability. MultiBhashi, Artivatic, IndiaLends, Rail Yatri, and others are included in its portfolio.
The technology giant also pointed out that GFS has been actively contributing to the development of start-ups in the ecosystem through 1:1 mentorships and webinar material. AI and machine learning (ML), to tackle new landscape challenges.
The webinar and meetings concentrate on the priorities of the startup, such as growth, monetization, optimization, and design in key areas such as cloud, android, and digital marketing. Over the past two months, more than 250 start-ups in India have supported GFS Accelerator. In the months to come, it seeks to help even more.