Hospitality Purchasing Managers Forum (HPMF) has announced the establishment of a dedicated Start-up Cell. HPMF is the first association to do so.
The HPMF Start-up Cell’s aim is to guide and promote new ideas in the field of SCM, and support new entrepreneurs who are willing to launch their start-ups in the supply chain management domain. Earlier HPMF extended career support to laid-off hospitality professionals through the ‘HPMF Hope’ initiative.
The forum has exclusive support from various angel funding platforms to take this initiative forward in full swing. More than 3600 members of the forum are also supporting this initiative and will be a strong base for HPMF Start-up Cell.
HPMF Start-up Cell will be driven by a core team who will guide, mentor, connect and validate ideas for new age start-ups. The core team will have a combined experience of more than 100 years. The forum will not only build & support entrepreneurship in field of Supply Chain Management and its related products & services but will also support digital procurement / next generation procurement platform start-up ideas.
While speaking about the unique initiative, Dr Nitin Nagrale, Founder, Hospitality Purchasing Manager's Forum (HPMF) said, “The hospitality industry has suffered the most in this pandemic and there seems to be a longer tunnel to experience the light at the end. HPMF is determined to hold the hands of all the procurement professionals, who have unfortunately lost jobs during this period. Apart from providing them with job opportunities, we also felt that it is high time that some of them turn into entrepreneurs. The HPMF Startup Initiative will help them to convert their ideas into reality by providing them knowhow, helping them in creating project reports, assigning resources and also getting all of this funded by an external fund management company- Koham.”
While informing about the funding range available for the start-ups, Nagrale added, “The fund management company Koham is ready to invest from INR 5 lakhs to INR 50 lakhs per start up, and that will depend on the approval of the project report.”
Nagrale also informed that within a few days after announcing the HPMF Start-up Cell, they received an overwhelming response from the people. “At the moment 30 of them have registered for this initiative” he said.
Understanding the gravity of the situation fuelled by the pandemic, HPMF will also be extending their helping hands to non-members. Nagrale apprised, “Start-up Cell was initially created for HPMF members, but we will surely extend our help to other hospitality professionals as well, if they approach us.”
He also mentioned that, “This is the right time for all of us show real humanity to the needy members of the society and help them to stand back on their feet. I am personally hopeful that soon we will all be happy when we look back and appreciate these efforts.”
HPMF Start-up Cell also has a coordination group, which has been set up to address the needs and demands of the rapidly expanding start-up community and` promote the HPMF Start-up Ecosystem.