Crayon Software Experts India (Crayon) announced the launch of an Independent Software Vendor (ISV) Incubation Center in Bengaluru. The center, Crayon’s first such in India, is established in collaboration with Amazon Web Services India Private Limited (AWS India) and will support India-based ISVs and startups to develop cloud-based digital solutions for public sector application areas like agriculture, healthcare, utilities, and smart infrastructure and edtech.
ISVs and startups face multiple challenges in their quest to build viable solutions to meet customer needs in the public sector, including comprehending the fast pace of technology advancement and identifying the right technologies to leverage, minimizing time-to-market, and providing public sector customers solutions with better governance and data security. Crayon and AWS India aim to address this through the incubation center by empowering ISVs and startups – both early-stage and mature – with the technical and business knowledge and capabilities to bring their ideas to market, and build and scale their solutions to address public sector organisations’ needs, in turn, helping them deliver citizen services more effectively.
At the incubation center, ISVs and startups will receive support from AWS, Crayon, and its partners, in realizing their business ideas using the cloud and scaling their solutions for customers faster. This includes training on building a cloud business strategy – from understanding customer demographics to infrastructure migration, software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution development, leveraging advanced cloud capabilities like machine learning (ML), and artificial intelligence, and go-to-market strategies. Participants will also gain public sector connections through networking activities facilitated by Crayon at the center, including roundtable events and executive briefings, where market-ready ISVs can pitch their solutions to public sector customers. ISVs and startups will graduate from the incubation center each year, following an average incubation period of six to nine months.
“India has the world’s third largest startup hub, and local ISVs and startups have groundbreaking ideas that solve meaningful public sector challenges and drive positive citizen outcomes,” said Vikas Bhonsle, CEO at Crayon Software Experts India. “By launching our first ISV Incubation Center in India, we are using Crayon’s decades of experience of engaging ISVs, to help these companies turn their ideas into reality. We are thrilled to collaborate with AWS for this milestone initiative; AWS’s broadest and deepest set of cloud services, deep public sector expertise, and global reach will be crucial in helping more up-and-coming ISVs and startups to grow and scale.”
AWS and Crayon will support the Incubation Center by accelerating the development of the ISVs to become members of the AWS Partner Network (APN), a global community of more than 100,000 partners across 150 countries, where partners benefit from technical expertise, funding, go-to-market resources, and increased visibility to customers. AWS and Crayon will together help onboard the identified ISVs to the APN, and support them with technical validation through the AWS Well-Architected Review framework, which enables partners to evaluate architectures and implement scalable designs. Following this, ISVs will learn about procurement paths with customers, and progress to establishing go-to-market (GTM) readiness, including developing business plans, building innovative solutions to address market needs, customer account planning, driving successful customer engagements, and growing their business.
A recent report by Accenture, commissioned by AWS, found that small businesses that embrace cloud-enabled technologies in India’s education, healthcare, and agriculture sectors alone could unlock up to ₹1.6 trillion in annual productivity gains by 2030—a 152% increase on current levels. “Many innovative population-scale solutions are being built in India on the cloud to deliver significant value to citizens in healthcare, agriculture, financial inclusion, e-governance, and education,” said Sunil PP, Lead—Education, Space, Non-profits, Channels and Alliances, AWS India Private Limited. “The scale and the diversity of demographics in India present a unique opportunity for digital technology innovation, and it’s important to nurture local businesses to develop solutions directly addressing these problem statements. AWS is committed to enable local small businesses to drive economic and social impact, and we are pleased to collaborate with Crayon to empower homegrown ISVs and startups to innovate using the power of the cloud”.
“AWS provides a wide range of cloud services that can accelerate our innovation in AI and ML, and we have the potential to leverage their global expertise and enhance our market readiness. We also look forward to connecting with Crayon and AWS’s wide customer and partner network to strengthen and expand our presence,” said Gagandeep Randhawa, Chief Executive Officer at EaseMyAI, an ISV that develops innovative AI products making automation simple for businesses, government organizations and education sector, and is part of the first cohort at the incubation center, “We look forward to utilizing Crayon’s ISV Incubation Center to accelerate our software development lifecycle.”