Impacted by the disruption, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Indian startups are now approaching prospective investors virtually, with assistance from the National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom).

To help Indian startups, Nasscom has selected 20+ startups for the initial investor connect sessions.

The selected startups are from healthtech, agritech, consumer tech, robotics industry and will virtually pitch to investors from Japan, starting 28 May.

Talking about this investor connect sessions, Gagan Sabharwal (Senior Director & Head, Global Trade Development, Nasscom) said,

“After the success of the September 2019 Japanese investor connect for Indian startups we started the process for 2020 edition in January itself, however, due to the pandemic, the preferences of investors have shifted over the past five months. Many are not confident about investing in areas like e-commerce or hospitality anymore. But interest in mobility, supply chain, health-tech and personal hygiene startups among others are very high.”

Gagan also said the VC participation in virtual sessions is lower than they had last year.

Gagan Sabharwal said,

“The VC participation in the virtual sessions is lower than what we had last year during the physical rounds because it is harder in the current situation to arrange for enough Japanese translation facilities which has limited our reach to those VCs who are comfortable with English.”