FIIB organizes Business Plan Competition MERAKI 2014
Fortune Institute of International Business (FIIB) organized the 3rd edition of MERAKI on January 17 -18, 2014. The competition was followed by the Entrepreneurship summit.
Fortune Institute of International Business (FIIB), New Delhi organized the 3rd edition of MERAKI (national level b-plan competition for under-graduate and post-graduate students) on January 17 -18, 2014. The competition was followed by the Entrepreneurship summit. While b-plan competitions have become a commoditized event to some extent, FIIB is unique and true in its mission in this because of few key reasons: MERAKI is a word that modern Greeks often use to describe doing something with soul, creativity, or love -when you put something of yourself into what youre doing, whatever it may be.
MERAKI is organized to provide an impetus to the growing ideas of the ignited minds of the young and passionate to be entrepreneurs. As part of MERAKI, top venture capitalists of the country share their experiences and hear B-Plan pitch.
In 2012, FIIB launched a platform called MERAKI which concluded its 3rd edition successfully in January 2014. MERAKI invites business plans from across India (from better known institutions like the IITs, IIMs while at the same time lesser known institutions across the country). Other than awarding handsome seed-funding to the top 3 teams, the uniqueness of this platform stems from:
(a) The process of short-listing business plans through various stages spans over 6 months and is fairly comprehensive MERAKI(2014) received 125 high-quality business plans
(b) The judges are blue-blooded angel/venture investors with real-life experience of funding 100s of ventures across various sectors and geographies. MERAKIS 3rd edition included judges like Alok Mittal (Canaan), Amit Khosla (AsiaBridge), Anshoo Sharma (Lightspeed), Manish Kheterpal (ex Rho, Actis& Providence), Sarbvir Singh (Capital 18) and Vishal Dixit (Zephyr Peacock).
(c) The feedback provided by the judges to the MERAKI finalists is invaluable in their pursuit of building venture fundable and successful ventures.
While from the 125 initial entries, 60 were short-listed for the 2nd round, only 10 teams were invited for a face-off with the judges at the FIIB campus. MERAKI Top 10 finalists in 2014 included a wide array of business plans - from solving the problems in Indian agriculture through hydrophonics and organic farming, to solving the last mile delivery issues for the F&B sector, to launching innovative products for health care administration and green transportation. Several of these had a purely commercial goal, like a scalable wedding planning, wedding retail store business, or an ethnic F&B business in south India, some businesses also struck the commercial and social balance appropriately, like the green transportation solution which involves employment for the disabled.
The teams received valuable advice after a Dragons Den type grilling from the judges and got an automatic entry in the Fortune Venture Incubator (FVI), an Incubator that provides ground-level hand-holding incubation support required for young ventures. From the previous years, FVI supported ventures have gone on to get funding from Accelerators, Angel investors and government institutions.
During MERAKI, the finalists also get exposure to successful entrepreneurs and investors through the Entrepreneurship Summit organized at FIIB. This year it included a Go to Market Product Strategy for Young Entrepreneurs workshop conducted by Ambrish Gupta (Knowlarity) and discussion on Promoting Entrepreneurship for Inclusive Development in Indiawherepanelists like Ketan Kapoor (Mettl),Jyotika Bhatia (Srujna) and Anshoo Sharma (LightSpeed) shared their experiences.
All in all, MERAKI continues to make a meaningful difference in the pursuits of young Indian entrepreneurs and takes them one step closer to their dream.
Established in 1995, Fortune Institute of International Business has been accredited by National Board of Accreditation (NBA). Post Graduate Diploma in Management (International Business), awarded by FIIB, is recognized by AICTE as equivalent to MBA.
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