Ingram Micro Cloud launches Comet to find India’s top B2B software startup

Ingram Micro named Rapidor by Acelr Tech Labs as the India winner of its Comet Competition startup challenge. Rapidor is a powerful application that helps SME business owners automate order-to-payment & collection, thereby having greater control over critical business processes while increasing efficiency and reducing expenses. The winning team overcame 15 other challengers to win $100,000 in GTM funding and a spot in the global finals which will be held next year at the Ingram Micro Cloud Summit in Miami, Florida. Rapidor will compete against 15 other ISVs from around the world for the grand prize of $1 Mn.

Fortune 500 Company Ingram Micro is the world’s largest hardware and software distribution system with revenue of more than $54 billion annually. Ingram Micro Cloud delivers best of breed IaaS & SaaS solutions through its industry-leading, Cloud Marketplace. Comet was conceived of as a platform to help early-stage technology entrepreneurs with go-to-market support and access to a strong partner ecosystem. India has a huge number of B2B SaaS startups with global aspirations and the number is rapidly increasing, boosted by the success of Zoho, Freshworks, InMobi, etc. While most Indian startups excel at the product and engineering, they struggle with marketing their products to appeal to a global audience and creating a sales engine that scales. This is where Ingram Micro’s is of great relevance to the startup ecosystem. With access to over 70% of global IT consumption and deep relationships across SMB, SME & Enterprise accounts, Ingram Micro can be a true force multiplier for ISVs. Currently, in its second iteration, Comet 2019 spans 16 countries like the USA, UK, Mexico, Israel, ANZ, etc. in addition to India. The first year surfaced exciting ISVs like Pixm, ClearBlade and with the increased global footprint, this year’s competition is bigger and better in every way.

The current iteration of Comet saw 4000+ startups from across the world, including 300+ applicants from India. After a comprehensive evaluation process, 16 finalists were selected to present their business ideas to an eminent panel of judges including Vivek Durai, CEO of Paper.vc, Rahul Sharma, Managing Director, India & SAARC at LogMeIn, Lathika Pai, Country Head, Microsoft for Startups, MENA & SAARC, Jyotil Mankad, Director & Head of Cloud at Ingram Micro India & Sailajanandan Nayak, Head of Marketing at Ingram Micro India. The startups were evaluated on several criteria including Team, Customer, Market, Solution, Market Traction, Growth, and Channel Fit. While Rapidor by Acelr Labs took the top spot, closely following it were the three runners-up, InstaSafe Technologies, Parablu, and Sequretek. Each of them won $50,000 each in GTM funding.

Commenting on the competition, Diego Utge, Senior Vice President and Chief Country Executive Ingram Micro India said “Emerging technologies and innovative solutions are continuously changing the business landscape with new opportunities. While Ingram Micro works with leading technology vendors and solutions providers, we are excited to discover the next big technology superstars and offer them support at a very early stage in their journey.” Euphoric after this success, Thomson Skariah, CEO Acelr Tech Labs had this to say: “We are delighted to partner with Ingram Micro in our journey to empower SMEs around the world”.

All eyes on Team Rapidor as they head to Miami in May 2020 for the Ingram Micro Cloud Summit and finals of the Comet Competition.