CHENNAI: IIM-Ahmedabad’s Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) has launched a Bharat Inclusion Initiative to build knowledge and foster innovation and entrepreneurial activity across areas such as financial inclusion, livelihood, education and health.
Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) at IIM Ahmedabad helps entrepreneurs turn ideas into viable businesses.
The initiative will aim at channelising approximately $25 million over the next 3-4 years towards backing game-changing start-ups, leveraging the ongoing digital transformation in India, to create access to services that were hitherto inaccessible for a large segment of Indians.
``With seed support from Tata Trusts, CIIE’s efforts have received an initial commitment of $12.5 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, and Omidyar Network,’’ said a release. This includes a $5 million commitment for providing catalytic support to start-ups through a series of acceleration programmes, focused research, training workshops and piloting partnerships. In addition, CIIE will also invest in seed and pre-Series-A start-ups through a dedicated Bharat Inclusion Seed Fund - which announced its initial closing at $7.5 million, and is expected to make a final close at $15 million by July, 2018.
Neharika Vohra, chairpeson of the CIIE initiative, said: “The Bharat Inclusion Initiative aims to provide a continuum of solutions to inclusion-focused tech entrepreneurs across the pre-incubation, seed and scale-up stage and help them jump to the next orbit. Empowering the entire country to participate in the formal economy is an important goal, and entrepreneurship is a powerful tool to achieve this. It is heartening to see the support for this initiative from all the partners.”
Through in-depth research to build knowledge about the under-served, incubating new start-ups in this space and providing access to soft and patient capital as these ventures take root, the Bharat Inclusion Initiative will seek to catalyse entrepreneurs who are building disruptive solutions for Bharat.
Published - May 14, 2018 03:16 pm IST
