WhatsApp Startup India challenge: Today is the last day to register

WhatsApp will award the top five winners a total grant of $250,000. The winning ideas will be announced on May 24.

How to register for WhatsApp’s Startup India challenge (Shutterstock)

WhatsApp had announced its Startup India challenge last October. WhatsApp began registrations for "Startup India - WhatsApp Grand Challenge" earlier this year and today is the last day for the challenge.

Interested startups can register for the challenge through its microsite. After the entries are evaluated by Startup India, the results will be announced on May 24. The Facebook-owned company has partnered with Invest India for this startup challenge, and will award the top five winners a total grant of $250,000.

The themes for this startup challenge include healthcare, rural economy, financial and digital inclusion, education and citizen safety. In this startup challenge first 30 ideas will be shortlisted moving on to the final 10 which will be demonstrated live for the finals. The five winning ideas will each receive a grant of $50,000.

WhatsApp's criteria for entries are described as "Entrepreneurs with highly innovative ideas, business models that solve for a local India problem, making a large scale socio-economic impact."

Participating startups are also required to be accompanied by a pitch deck, with a maximum of 6-8 slides.

WhatsApp's startup challenge is a part of the company's business efforts in the country. WhatsApp Business platform recently completed a year since its launch. WhatsApp also said its business platform has over 5 million businesses registered.

WhatsApp will reveal more details on the Startup India challenge later this year. Over the past year WhatsApp has increased its business platform. Earlier this January, WhatsApp Business app completed a year since its launch. WhatsApp said its business app now has over 5 million businesses registered on the platform. It also expanded three new features of WhatsApp Business for the web. WhatsApp Business users can now access features like quick replies, labels and chat list filtering on the web app.