Investors in India not predatory; they look for innovation: Zack Weisfeld, Microsoft Accelerator

Microsoft Accelerator has changed the way it works with startups since its debut in 2012. The accelerator, which initially worked with very early-stage startups, recently shifted its focus to late-stage startups. Microsoft is also connecting them with corporates for better market access via its CoInnovate programme. In an interaction with ETtech’s Vikas SN, Zack Weisfeld, general manager, Microsoft Accelerator said that the programme has now grown much faster than he ever expected. Edited excerpts:


Your thoughts on the Indian startup ecosystem...
I think there is more funding available in the market, more investors that are properly looking at investing in innovation versus being predatory. I met some really interesting deep-tech startups. Another interesting phenomenon is people who were working for IT services companies are now building interesting SaaS companies.

Is the mix of startups that you get to evaluate in each batch changing?
The main difference is that we have moved to a bit of late stage. We used to be very early stage (pre-seed to seed), but we have now shifted to Series-A startups or what we call market-ready startups.

Other thing that has also shifted is that we probably have more tendency to work with enterprise and B2B startups, although we are not solely focussed on it. Part of the reason is that we can bring more value, leveraging our connections and customer base to these startups.

We are seeing similar things around the world. A lot of people are interested in AI (artificial intelligence), machine vision, images. I hear blockchain here as well more often now than before. I haven’t seen much of car technology or autonomous car technologies. I also thought I would see more agri-tech startups but I haven’t seen many of those here. Maybe that’s because my view is skewed.

How has Microsoft Accelerator itself evolved over the years?
We pitched internally to Satya ( Nadella) back when he was heading our server and tools division in November 2011, and started our first one in Tel Aviv in April 2012. Bengaluru came online two months later. We have just announced our eighth accelerator in Shanghai and will announce more in the future. Around 520 startups have graduated from the programme. We had 41exits. 38 via acquisitions and three via IPOs.

The programme grew much faster than I ever expected it to go. When starting the accelerator, most of the people inside and outside had said it is amistake and Microsoft shouldn’t do it. We have now proved them wrong.

Is Satya still regularly involved in the programme on a regular basis?
When Satya joined, we were not sure what changes he would bring. But Satya was the first one that gave a green light for this project. At the beginning of this year, we brought 15 global startups to the US and they had a roundtable with Satya and Scott Guthrie, our head of cloud and enterprise group. The commitment Satya makes to this and his involvement is great. He’s been to a few of our demo days, and all of his directs have been to our demo days, including this one.