Gurugram-based PedalStart is organizing Founders' Walk 3.0, a selection-based networking meetup for founders. Aimed at bridging the gap between founders and potential investors across 11 states in India, the first leg of the program will take place in Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Noida, Lucknow, and Chandigarh on May 20, 2023. The second leg will be held on May 27, 2023, in Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Indore, Gurugram and Chennai. 

PedalStart's co-founder Manas Pal said, "The result of the last Founders' Walk was amazing as we changed the method and raised the bar of local founders' meet and made it more outcome-oriented for all selected startups. Based on the statistics and feedback we gathered following the meetups, we found that these community meets add a lot of value to startup life."  

Founders' Walk aims to bring together curated startups from a particular city, providing them with a platform to discover co-founders and team members, explore potential business opportunities, and learn from experienced founders. It is designed to bring together 40 per cent proof of concept to minimum viable product (MVP) stage startups, 30 per cent MVP stage startups, 10 per cent ideation stage startups, 10 per cent pre-seed raised startups, and 10 per cent startup enthusiasts to accelerate their business.  

Co-founder Aditya Darolia added that the company has drawn up a list of 24 potential startups that we are accelerating. Of these, two are now in late-stage discussion to close their first pre-seed round. 

"We added 30 per cent new cities in this Founders Walk to enable some tier 2 cities and spread entrepreneurship culture across pan-India. This is our strategic move because we believe that next all-new innovations will drive and build for tier 2 cities," he added. 

PedalStart also facilitates participating startups with one-month direct community access for free. Based on the last Founders Walk statistics 4 per cent of startups directly qualify for the acceleration. 

The Founder Walk registration process involves a two-step screening process. The first is a screening call where PedalStart assesses the founder's passion and enthusiasm and analyzes the problem that the startup is attempting to solve. 

The second step is another call with selected applicants to learn more about the innovation they have developed to solve the problem identified by the startup. Upon completion of these steps, successful applicants are selected for the meetup.