French startup accelerator NUMA launches in Bengaluru in partnership with COBALT

Premier French startup accelerator NUMA will be launching its Bengaluru branch in conjunction with Bengaluru-based coworking center COBALT.

The 15-year-old organization, backed by Google, will be setting up shop in the Cobalt building on Church Street. This will be the second of 15 international NUMA sites planned over the next three years, the first having launched in Moscow earlier in 2015.

"Everything is happening right here, right now, and we think we can have an impact here," said Frédéric Oru, COO of NUMA, during his week-long visit to India in February.

NUMA originally started as a nonprofit under the name Silicon Sentier in 2000, later launching France's first coworking space in 2008 and first accelerator in 2011. It receives 650 startup applications per accelerator batch, and hosts 1500 events every year.

Its cross-industry, multi-stage accelerator has seen seven exits in the past three years, including a Twitter acquisition, and its alumni have garnered over 30 million euros (Rs 208 crores) in funding.

"NUMA Bengaluru will offer entrepreneurs the benefit of NUMA's incredible knowledge and the possibility to use COBALT BLR's current office and facilities while developing in an exceptional work environment at the heart of a thriving ecosystem," said Naresh Narasimhan, founder of COBALT.

NUMA's vision is to have industry-specific accelerators set up in different cities according to their respective strengths, so that NUMA startups can choose from a variety of city accelerators based on their field. Currently, NUMA counts Google for Entrepreneurs and BNP Paribas as some of its partners, as well as the European Social Fund.

"We bring a synergistic view not only for startups, but also to bring progressive change to India," Oru told ET.