New Delhi, 15 February, 2024: Amazon India today announced Mirana Toys, Avimee Herbal and Perfora as winners of the Amazon Global Selling Propel Startup Accelerator (Propel Accelerator) Season 3. The winners cumulatively got $100K in grant from Amazon. Mirana Toys, combines digital and physical play through app-controlled augmented reality games and offers a range of innovative smart toys. Avimee Herbal, founded by 85-year-old Radha Krishna Choudhary, aka Nanaji, is a hair care solution brand rooted in Ayurveda, offering effective, century-old remedies for everyday hair concerns. Perfora focuses on elevating everyday oral care with clean ingredients and good design. It is India’s first made-safe certified oral health brand and a member of the “1% for the planet” community.
Propel Accelerator Season 3 was launched in March 2023 in association with VC (venture capital) firms Accel, Amazon Smbhav Venture Fund, DSG Consumer Partners, Fireside Ventures, Peak XV, V3 Ventures as well as revenue-based-financing firms including Klub and Velocity. The third season got an overwhelming response with 1,200+ applications by startups and emerging brands from 140 cities across India. 47 startups were selected as finalists including brands like Giva, Mokobara, Open Secret and others. The winners and all the finalists also received $1 million (cumulative) in AWS Activate credits.
The program included an 8-week accelerator as part of which Amazon leaders from India, VC partners and others engaged with the finalists through focused workshops, 1:1 mentorship on the global demand patterns and insights on building successful exports businesses through e-commerce. Amazon also hosted virtual mentorship sessions focused on peer learning by inviting veteran entrepreneurs to interact with the cohort. For the first time, the program featured a unique bootcamp to help the season 3 finalists launch their products on at least one Amazon marketplace globally. As part of this, they received dedicated 1:1 support from Amazon account management teams, along with guidance on their product category and advertising support.
Finally, the 10 top finalists shortlisted by a multidisciplinary panel got an opportunity to pitch to a distinguished jury including Prayag Mohanty from Fireside Ventures, Shraeyansh Thakur from Peak XV, Preetham N from Amazon Smbhav Venture Fund, Pooja Shirali from DSG Consumer Partners and Abhiram Bhalerao from V3 Ventures. The jury evaluated the pitches on a variety of parameters including business idea and story, product market fit, business metrics in launched markets and global expansion plans. The jury announced Mirana Toys, Avimee Herbal and Perfora as winners of the Propel Accelerator Season 3.
Bhupen Wakankar, Director Global Trade at Amazon India said – “I would like to congratulate all the winners and the finalists from Propel Accelerator Season 3. It’s heartening to see such entrepreneurial spirit, innovation and the ambition of building global brands from startups in different parts of the country. It’s a testament to the rapid adoption of ecommerce exports amongst Indian small businesses and D2C brands. I would also like to thank all our partners for their support in creating a springboard for Indian entrepreneurs to create global brands from India. We will continue to work with businesses of all sizes, helping them take their products to customers across the world and enable $20B in cumulative ecommerce exports from India by 2025.”
The winner of Propel Accelerator Season 3, Devansh Sharma, Co-Founder of Mirana Toys, said – “Mirana Toys was established with the aim to be a global toy brand with its foundation being engineering and technology to deliver innovative toys to kids around the world. Amazon marketplace has been the most important partner in fulfilling our vision in India. The Propel programme guided us to explore the global market and it has been the most wonderful opportunity to take our products global. Amazon propel has helped us in every aspect of selling globally. Over the past few months, we’ve had numerous opportunities to engage with industry leaders, venture capitalists, and peers, gaining invaluable insights into the intricacies of establishing a global business, catering to diverse global customer preferences. Using the above support and guidance we did our pilot of selling on Amazon USA in past 6 months and it has grown successfully, we are now confident to scale our business to multiple new global markets in the coming years.”
What did the finalists say about Propel Accelerator Season 3?
“One of the most memorable experiences of being in Propel Accelerator Season 3 was the peer networking meet up in Delhi where we spent the afternoon with other brand heads selling on the program. It was a tremendous value add to be in the room with peers and the Amazon Global Selling team learning from their experience and insights” – Chef Gauri, Founder, Confect.
Devansh Sharma, Founder, Mirana Toys – “Getting selected to Propel Accelerator has been instrumental in kick starting our global selling journey. We wanted to ensure we got the best logistics support, and Amazon’s SEND program helped us get tailored services per our needs. We started selling globally in Q1’2023 and are seeing encouraging growth in business.”
More about Amazon Global Selling Propel Accelerator
Launched in January 2021, Amazon Global Selling Propel Accelerator is designed to help early-stage startups in the consumer products space expand globally and become international brands. Through the program, Amazon has enabled over 150+ Indian startups to launch in global markets. As a part of the program, a cohort of select startups receive 1:1 mentorship from industry leaders, a platform to interact with investors and receive handholding support in going global. Solethreads, EcoRight and Go Desi were the winners of the second season, whereas Slurrp Farm, Sirona and Wellbeing Nutrition were the winners of the inaugural season in 2021.
About AWS Activate Credits
All finalists of the Propel Accelerator season 3 got $1M+ (cumulative) in cloud computing credits through the AWS Activate program, which provides early-stage startups with a host of benefits, including AWS credits, technical support, and training.
About Amazon Global Selling
Amazon Global Selling is a flagship program that helps lower the entry barrier for Indian MSMEs to start or expand their exports business using ecommerce. The program was launched in India in 2015 to support Indian exporters to reach customers worldwide through Amazon’s international websites and marketplaces. It provides an avenue for businesses of all sizes to build global brands. Today there are more than 1.25 lakh exporters across India on the program, showcasing millions of Made in India products to customers in 200+ countries and territories across the world. Many of these businesses are first generation entrepreneurs and emerging brands. Amazon Global Selling has been witnessing remarkable growth and Indian MSMEs exporting through the program have surpassed $8 billion in cumulative sales till now. Amazon has pledged to enable $20 billion in cumulative exports from India by 2025.
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