Bengaluru feels like home !
I’m always moved when, getting out of the subway, I catch the sight of NUMA’s building in Paris, already buzzing with entrepreneurs going in and out, energizing everything around them.
I love the place, I love the people, I love what we do.
Last week, I was in Bangalore and I felt an even stronger feeling of pride and joy when I saw “NUMA” on the forefront of a building in the middle of this Indian Silicon Valley (or “Silicon “Plateau”, as Naresh would say since Bangalore is high above the sea level)
The similarity between both building in Paris and Bangalore is striking. Right here, 8000 km from Paris, I feel instantly at home. Let me give you a tour !
The sixth Floor is a fantastic space for events, which will also be used for daily coworking and ephemeral café (each month a new bartender)
Fifth floor is the regular coworking floor with desks for rent and meeting rooms.
Fourth floor hosts the eleven startups which we selected in our first NUMA Sprint program.
At the third floor Airbus decided to settle its Bizlab and partner with us to share our assets in accelerating startups and entrepreneurs
The second floor purpose is not fully determined but should host art works, or maybe IOT labs.
At the first floor, Social is a cool bar & restaurant with its own coworking.
Yes, the building looks sooo like NUMA in Paris, but what really makes me feel at home are the people : cheerful, enthusiastic, open minded and … hectic ! Tonight is the kick-off for the first season of NUMA Sprint, and in a way the official launch of NUMA Bengaluru !
Almost 200 people came to see the eleven startups which made it through our drastic selection process (5%) : corporates, entrepreneurs, public institutions, ecosystem fellows and journalists of course.
The master of Ceremony is Shashikiran Rao, serial entrepreneur and co-founder of the famous “Construkt Festival”, one the largest community event in India (10000+ attendees each year). Sashi introduces himself as the ‘entrepreneur in residence’ of NUMA Blr, which means he will personally follow-up the startups each week and help them focus on the right things.
Then the “sprinters” come on the scene and perform their one minute pitch, encouraged by frantic applause and “woohoo” from every side.
I’m truly impressed by the quality of the presentations, both in content and performance.
The diversity of the themes are typical of NUMA selection : education, sports, augmented reality, menswear, grocery, elderly, brainstorming, and even wedding !
Finally, two Indians step forward … and I know them well : they are the cofounder of Stride (ex Tationem), and they have just finished the Sprint program … in Paris ! They came specially to give a testimony of their experience for their young Indian fellows. They said they found the partners they were looking for in Paris and had advanced meeting with 3 VCs following the Demo Day in Paris. Congrats !
One day, I’m sure I will see some french entrepreneurs explaining to their fellows in Paris all the benefit they got from being accelerated by NUMA in Bangalore.
The circle is closed : from Bangalore to Paris and from Paris to Bangalore, diverse culture, same spirit … this is NUMA !
Special thanks and congratulations to the team in Bengaluru.
