Entrepreneurial Spark, the free business accelerator for early stage and growing ventures, which was first launched in England in Birmingham, is launching a series of “hatcheries” in India to support the country’s budding entrepreneurs.

In its first expansion beyond its native UK, Entrepreneurial Spark, named the most active accelerator in Europe having accelerated 352 start-ups in 2014, will open a string of centres across India to support innovation and entrepreneurship and to help young
businesses to create thousands of jobs.

The Indian accelerator programme is a joint venture with Viridian, and will be known as Entrepreneurial Spark – Powered by Viridian. In Birmingham, the first location where the initiative was rolled out outside Scotland, it is called Entrepreneurial Spark - Powered by NatWest, as a result of the bank's partnership.

The Indian expansion will see Entrepreneurial Spark’s offer of office space and support rolled out to a much larger pool of potential entrepreneurs, and is tipped to have a huge positive social and economic effect.

Entrepreneurial Spark co-founder and chief executive Jim Duffy said: “We build people who build businesses, and that has a huge positive knock-on effect in terms of innovation, job creation and economic growth.

“We have chosen India as our first overseas expansion because of the huge potential there for entrepreneurship to make a difference.”