Disha Singla, Co-founder of Supreme Incubator, recently joined NewsX for an insightful conversation as part of its special series NewsX India A-list. In the exclusive interview, Disha spoke about the inception of Supreme Incubator, the functioning of a startup incubator, future of startups in India and how her organisation is paving the way for young entrepreneurs to lead a change.
Speaking about the inception of Supreme Incubators, Disha said, ”A couple of years ago, I went to a business school in the USA to pursue my degree with a major in entrepreneurship. I spent a lot of time around startups there. In fact, my own startup was incubated by my university. I got connected with mentors and potential investors over there while working with other startups, who were at the same initial stages. All of this inspired me to further pursue my passion. When I came back to India, I hosted some events here and received a great response. We started receiving applications from all over the country and we connected those startups to potential investors and mentors and received phenomenal feedback from them. It has been two years now since the inception of Supreme and it has been going great. We are focussing on Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities, we uplift the startups by connecting them with potential investors, experts, and specific mentors so that they are able to grow in a short period of time.”
Giving our viewers an insight into the functioning of an incubator, she said, “An incubator takes action towards creating an adept ecosystem by connecting them with experts and advisors. These mentors are expert in their domains and have led their own successful ventures. They are leading large corporations so they know how to run large organisations. We at Supreme have mentors from different fields, some mentors are experts in business and technology while many of them are experts in artificial intelligence.”
Further emphasising how Supreme is different from other incubators, Disha expressed, ”We focus more on a personalised approach. Every start-up, which is accepted in our cohort, gets personalised assistance and guidance as per their industry type. We provide industry-specific mentors to them so that they receive mentorship and guidance throughout their tenure, which will help them to move in the right direction in the least possible time.”
When asked about her views on the start-up ecosystem in India and how it has changed and evolved over the years, Disha said, ”The startup ecosystem has definitely developed at a very fast pace over the last 10 years, especially over the past 5 years. When I was in high school, I used to keep up a lot with news-related to business. Earlier, when we used to hear the word ‘startup’, we had to understand what it is but now everyone seem to say that they want to get into the start-up ecosystem. Startup is all about scaling up. There are a lot of challenges and the success ratio of startups are very low. Yet everyone is excited about this term ‘startup’. We have also seen a lot of companies coming up in India, with so many success stories. I think everyone gets motivated to pursue the field that they are passionate about.”
Finally, on a concluding note, Disha shared her vision of the company and expressed that the company is looking forward to work with startups that offer different niches and who are determined towards uplifting and volunteering for a social cause. ”At this point in time, as an incubator, we accept startup applications from different industries so, in the coming years, we definitely want to get into different niche segments and to connect to those startups which are focussed on non-profit ventures and startups doing some social cause. we would definitely like to pursue startups from these niches as well,” she stated.