Maruti Suzuki launches 5th edition of MAIL initiative for start-ups

Maruti Suzuki India has announced entries and is inviting start-ups to participate in an innovative programme for the fifth round of its Mobility & Automobile Innovation Lab (MAIL) initiative. It will allow them to work on technology and solutions that can be applied in real-world business scenarios.

The start-ups that get selected through this MAIL programme, will get an opportunity to undertake paid Proof of Concept (PoC) with the company to co-creates technological and digital solutions for the automobile industry. Maruti Suzuki has already enabled 10 PoCs so far. The aim here is to help these start-ups develop industry-ready solutions for any live case across business functions like – Marketing & Sales, Engineering, Service, Production, Logistics, Warehousing, Spare Parts, and Accessories.

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First launched in January 2019, the MAIL initiative has so far engaged with 18 start-ups in the previous four rounds. Out of those 18, 4 companies are undergoing acceleration with Maruti Suzuki India

Talking about the initiative, Kenichi Ayukawa, Managing Director & CEO, Maruti Suzuki India said, “We are extremely delighted to have completed two years of collaborating and promoting the start-up fraternity through our MAIL program. We have successfully engaged with 18 start-ups and have enabled 10 PoCs. As a next step, in the fifth cohort, we look forward to engaging with more start-ups with innovative ideas for the automobile industry. Entrepreneurs with disruptive ideas, especially in light of the ongoing pandemic situation, can apply for the fifth cohort of our MAIL initiative.”

For this initiative, Maruti Suzuki has partnered with GHV Accelerator, an Indo Japanese early-stage seed fund, which will help them identify start-ups that have an innovative and customer-oriented solution. The start-ups also get an opportunity to implement their innovative solutions and validate them for business readiness. As of today, Maruti Suzuki has onboarded two startups as business partners.