Cisco LaunchPad (India)

Cisco invests directly in early-stage Enterprise SaaS startups, offering investment and access to its global enterprise sales channel. Cisco LaunchPad, run out of Bengaluru since 2016, has accelerated over 50 startups across seven-plus cohorts, working across enterprise tech, IoT/digitalisation and futuristic-tech verticals such as healthcare, retail, agri, manufacturing and security. At the initial accelerator stage the program is equity-free, giving startups technology access, go-to-market mentoring and Cisco's enterprise customer network before Cisco separately considers direct minority-stake investments (reported to be in the $3-5 million range) for startups that prove commercial traction.