Microsoft is announcing a fresh initiative, worth $500Mn, to support startups and local ecosystems globally. This will most probably work with the company’s pre-existing ‘ScaleUp’ program for startups. The ScaleUp program provides a platform for Series A startups to co-sell with their sales teams, get access to top tech venture capitals (VCs) in the global arena and get strategic intervention from world class thought leaders and industry mentors.
The Redmond-giant highlighted, that in less than 18 months, Microsoft for startups has closed about 127 co-sell deals by getting $20M as startup revenue and has more than $126M in active pipeline for startups. The program is currently present in eight cities worldwide and supports pre-series A/Series A B2B tech-enabled startups that aspire to evolve from being market ready to enterprise ready. The current portfolio of Microsoft consists of startups across a variety of industries including Fintech, Healthcare, Enterprise SaaS, Mobility Solutions and Robotic Process Automation.
The program actually offers some real, tangible growth opportunities to startups. If you look at the ecosystems globally, scaling and aaccelerated expansion is where a lot of pre-Series A/Series A startups face hurdles. This is largely due to lack of required tech or inability to develop and deploy resources for the same. To address this very issue, Microsoft has designed a co-sell motion which consists of a dedicated resource to help navigate the co-sell process. With one of the largest sales team, Microsoft enables entrepreneurs to sell qualified solutions into their customer accounts based on the startup’s value and expand into international markets.
“Being an entrepreneur for 17 years, I understand the dynamics of the challenges and shortcoming startups face while trying to scale. Microsoft for Startups offers entrepreneurs access to technology and infrastructure. Our programs like ScaleUp allows startups understand the length and breadth of Microsoft. We are committed to enrich the startup ecosystem and our co-sell motion aims to provide a joint sales experience for them to scale”,s aid Lathika Pai, Country Head, Microsoft for Startups, MENA & SAARC
