The Tamil Nadu government has sanctioned ₹7.5 crore in equity investments to five startups that were founded and managed by entrepreneurs from the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes. Chief Minister M.K. Stalin handed over the sanction orders on Friday in the presence of Minister for Finance and Human Resources Management Palanivel Thiaga Rajan and Minister for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises T.M. Anbarasan at the Secretariat.
The Tamil Nadu SC/ST startup fund is an equity investment and debt fund. The government had earmarked ₹30 crore for this fund through StartupTN in the Budget for 2022-23. This initiative is aimed at churning out inspirational stories that would spur creation of more start-ups by SC/ST entrepreneurs in the march toward inclusive mass entrepreneurship across demographics and sectors.
The scheme has attracted 330 applications since May 2022. Preliminary shortlisting of applications was carried out by StartupTN with the support of experts. The project sanction committee, after a detailed evaluation of the startups, approved investments to the tune of ₹7.5 crore in five startups in the form of Compulsorily Convertible Debentures (CCD).
A startup, called Unibose Technology Pvt. Ltd., which is into developing and building robots for cleaning vessels that store hazardous materials in the oil and gas industry and sewer lines, has got a funding of ₹2.5 crore. The fresh funds will help Unibose complete the development of its product lines and commercialise them in the market, comprising government as well as private sector buyers.
The second startup that got funded with ₹2 crore was Pack N Back Solutions Pvt. Ltd. The funding will help it create a logistics platform to track containers by embedding RFID tags and transform into a digital supply chain management company.
Three other startups, Ywe Auto Assist India Pvt. Ltd. (TowMan), Eco Soft Zolutions Pvt. Ltd. and PEAS Automation Technologies Pvt. Ltd., got ₹1 crore each. Ywe Auto Assist provides unique subscription-based roadside assistance to two-wheelers and four-wheelers, including towing, jumpstart and other minor vehicular movement services such as pickup and drop of vehicles to and from dealers for repair or service. The funding will help them expand their operations across Tamil Nadu.
The Tamil Nadu SC/ST Startup Fund will help Eco Soft pivot from a software services provider to an SaaS product provider in the automotive domain, eventually becoming a fintech solutions provider. PEAS Automation Technologies is building a portable multi agro processing unit in primary processing segment for small and medium farmers by integrating Industry 4.0 concepts. The funds will help the startup move to the development and sale of their range of Mobile Multiprocessing Units for foodgrains.
