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Before wrapping up the second phase of the story, it seems worth noting that the action was heating up in emerging markets, notably China and India – and Microsoft's strong presence in those markets was a great advantage.

As a company, Microsoft has historically taken emerging markets seriously, as seen from the scale and scope of its operations in China and India, and regular visits from global top managers. Not surprisingly, this is the case when it comes to startup partnering as well. The Skelta example from India demonstrates that although it required strenuous efforts from both managers at Microsoft India and the leaders of the startup, it was not impossible for an Indian startup to “dance” with Microsoft, even before BizSpark. And with the launch of BizSpark (and of BizSpark One), more such opportunities presented themselves, as illustrated by the case of Gridsum.

Beijing-based Gridsum was founded by Qi Guosheng, a young computer science graduate from Tsinghua University.²⁸ While at college, Qi had spent a summer interning at Microsoft's research facility in Beijing. When he founded Gridsum after graduating, he used Microsoft technology to build software products, the quality of which impressed Johnny Xu, a Microsoft China manager working with startups. Gridsum became the first (and, for a while, only) Chinese entrant into BizSpark One. For Microsoft China's sales force, Gridsum became an attractive example of how a Chinese company could leverage Microsoft technology to build software products. And thanks to BizSpark One, Gridsum was also able to attract global attention from Microsoft.

In 2011, when Steve Ballmer visited Beijing, he gave a talk at an event that had two speakers – Ballmer and Qi. Thus Gridsum was showcased as an example of how a startup in an emerging market like China could have a mutually beneficial relationship with Microsoft.²⁹ However, despite the examples of Skelta in India or Gridsum in China, most of the action during BizSpark One was in the West. For example, Microsoft produced a video showcasing some of the most promising BizSpark One startups; they were all from North America or Western Europe.³⁰

In 2012, by contrast, the launch of accelerators in Bangalore and Beijing, on the heels of the original one in Israel, gave tremendous impetus to Microsoft's startup partnering efforts in the world's two largest emerging markets. When first launched, the Indian accelerator readily adopted the Israeli model of a four-month curriculum, but in China, with its linguistic differences and unique ecosystems, it was felt that a six-month program was required. Eventually Chinese cohorts also adopted the same four-month program.

The timing of the launch of the Bangalore and Beijing accelerators proved to be fortunate, as both China and India were witnessing the beginnings of the rise of the mobile Internet. (In China, for example, 2011 was the year that WeChat was launched, and it began to take off the following year.³¹ ) Microsoft was able to engage with some interesting startups and “catch 'em young.” For instance, Testin was a startup created in Beijing in 2011 to provide software testing services for mobile apps. Testin was part of the first cohort of Microsoft's accelerator in Beijing in 2012. It has since gone on to extend the Microsoft partnership with China to the United States, where it has an office in San Francisco, apart from also building partnerships with several other multinationals.³²

In 2013, Microsoft reiterated its interest in a wide range of emerging markets when it launched the Microsoft4Afrika program,³³ which included small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as one of its target audiences, with a view to helping them develop digital skills (and thereby become potential customers of Microsoft software). In South Africa, with input from advisors like Catherine Young, managers such as Warren Larkan actively promoted Microsoft's partnering with smaller firms. The BizSpark program was creatively augmented in conjunction with a government program that led to a more elaborate offering of support to startups. Also, to comply with South African government policy, Microsoft launched a depth partnering program for a small number of software startups that qualified in terms of black-ownership criteria and high innovation potential.³⁴

Also in 2013, Microsoft's efforts around community building (notably, the breadth program, BizSpark), accelerators (depth), and seed funding (e.g. a small fund associated with Microsoft's search engine, Bing) were brought under a single umbrella called “Microsoft Ventures.”³⁵