Government and IIM - Calcutta tie up to support Start-ups

The Mamata Banerjee government has roped in IIM-Calcutta and National Stock Exchange (NSE) to help firms after they avail the state's Rs 200-crore venture capital fund. The state government had earlier in January proposed to create a Rs 200-crore venture capital fund for the small and medium industries. The aim was to help budding entrepreneurs and startup companies. The government had also proposed to develop applications and solutions related to cloud computing and mobile value added services. It has now tied up with Small Industries Development Bank of India, which will provide 15 percent of the fund. While the state government will provide Rs 100 crore to the corpus, SIDBI will provide Rs 30 crore. The rest of the amount will come from other private investors. The fund will provide equity capital to the startups and 20% of the corpus will be earmarked for providing incubation support to such firms. "We have tied up with IIM-Calcutta Innovation Park to provide incubation support to these startups. They will help them through the entire process, from screening the proposals to suggesting changes to make them viable," said Rajiva Sinha, secretary, MSME & textiles department. In a bid to make the entire process simpler for the small and medium enterprises, state government has designed a website where an entrepreneur can log in and submit his proposals which will later be screened by the IIP. According to estimates, more than 10,000 new MSME units are registered in Bengal every year.