India has the potential to become a global hub for IP leadership: Accelerating partner Prashanth Prakash

New Delhi (PTI) April 14 (PTI) asserted that “entrepreneurs have unlimited headroom,” said Accel partner Prashanth Prakash, who said the venture capital firm will use its recently announced $650 million fund over the next two-three years to support startups focused on industrialization focused on AI and technology leadership.

The company focused on 20-25 startup investments this year as it radically drives India’s growing landscape of innovation.

“If you are an entrepreneur, there is no better time to start,” Prakash told PTI in an interview.

“There are many opportunities for founders who have the ability to imagine and imagine what products India and the world need. Entrepreneurs provide entrepreneurs with unlimited headroom,” he said.

Prakash noted that while the impact of U.S. tariffs remain uncertain, India does have the strong potential to position itself as a global hub for IP-led innovation and high-value manufacturing, especially in areas such as defense, electric vehicles, aerospace and energy.

He added that it can do this by building a huge talent, launching agility, and the ability to plug into global supply chains through innovation and strategic collaboration.

According to entrepreneurs, philanthropists and venture capitalists, he is one of the Padma Shri winners announced earlier this year, and Indian startups are already mature and have a stronger balance between growth and profitability.

Prakash said he is optimistic about the potential of startups, especially in AI, technology-led industrialization, and the potential of driving intelligent innovations such as sustainability, EVS, aerospace and space technology in Indian venture capital.

He said there are strong early-stage investment activities, which include a large amount of capital available, including funds from Indian household offices – entities that manage investments in high net worth households – now consider startups as profitable asset classes. Overall, the ecosystem has matured to a more stable and healthier environment with better consistency between founders and investors.

“We’re here to a very good place in the ecosystem, where entrepreneurs understand how and how to build and investors know what they’re looking for, and there’s enough docking in this opportunity,” Prakash said.

Entrepreneurs and investors have identified the right modules for India and the right startups that can be built for India.

“We have recently earned $650 million in funding. We are very active in deploying the fund… We usually invest 15-25 times a year and our expectation is that we will invest 20-25 times this year in three areas of AI, technology-led industrialization and ‘Bharat and ‘Bharat’, and ‘Bharat’ of India tier 2 plus tier 2 pll of India tier 2 pll of India tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus tier 2 plus

“In the next two years, there will be a $650 million war box deployment.”

Accel works with companies reimagining industries from e-commerce and SaaS to manufacturing in 16 years of history in India and Southeast Asia. It has made substantial investments in areas such as Amagi, Acko, Blackbuck, Bluestone, Browserstack, Cult.Fit, Flipkart, Frandworks, Swiggy, Swiggy, Urban Company and Zetwerk.

In Prakash’s view, Padma awarded honors in trade and industry categories in many ways, marking the arrival of the age of the startup ecosystem itself. He sees this as an endorsement of startups’ ability to change India’s economy.

Accelerator partners say the startup ecosystem has developed dramatically, and the company’s bumper IPO ensures mass participation startup phenomenon. In addition, the launch ecosystem is moving beyond the city centers, deeper into 2 and 3 cities and making entrepreneurship a pan-Indian movement.

“There is greater hope in the next decade, and startups will impact a wider range of sectors and play a key role in national building.”

Prakash stressed that AI’s transformation and the potential to undermine enterprises are abandoning huge opportunities.

“I believe businesses have been paying attention and wanting to adopt AI, but I don’t think they can really make the most of it. That’s where the Indian ecosystem is able to build applications on our underlying models, it will be a huge area that acceleration and other investors will see,” he said.

He said that technology-led industrialization is another promising area. Many startup founders are no longer “terrorized” about building manufacturing capabilities or building real products.

“…AI is used for industrialization, or AI Plus’s manufacturing based on physical assets…will help the country to make a lot of import substitutions. And once you have the benefit of import substitution and building import substitutions and construction for the country, we can frugally build very low-cost bases and build very low bases in India, which will help us plug into this new multiple complex supply chains, which is what we say in new multiple multipole supply chains across our locations,” he said.

He called on Indian tech entrepreneurs to seize the opportunity to insert into this value chain, combining their deep understanding of AI, manufacturing and leveraging IP in the new era.

He took the defense ecosystem as one of the key opportunities, urging startups to capitalize on IDEX (Excellent Defense Innovation) and similar programs, while investors support innovation in this category.

“In electric cars, can we make components that can be plugged into the EV ecosystem? Will this only happen from China? No, not only Byd will provide everything for the rest of the world. They certainly have battery power and do that, but there are many other components that we can build like some Entrepreneers here, he said.

Prakash expressed his views on this industrial potential, and startups played a key role in sustainable products, electric vehicle products, aerospace products, space technology and defense products.

In the past two years alone, Accel has invested in more than 27 AI startups in India, or founded by Indian-Olin entrepreneurs.

In recent years, it has launched some key initiatives to make the founder’s journey as frictionless as possible and to fuel the growth of the ecosystem.

The company’s open source content and community platform, seeder, democratizes the company’s knowledge through actionable insights from successful founders, operators and industry leaders. Its early expansion plan, Accel Atoms, now in its fourth iteration, has supported 36 startups to date, which have aggregated more than $200 million.