Tamil Nadu startup Funds of Funds to create a niche

While the government of Tamil Nadu augments the techniques to build an enforcing environment in and around Tamil Nadu, it is making a motion to set-up a 250 crore fund of funds(FoF) for startups, as divulged by the state Chief Minister K. Palaniswami.  Nearly the idea to cover the areas of their interest includes electronics, biotech, healthcare, etc.

The announcement to uphold the new startup and innovation policy, targets to contrive around 5,000 startups, which involves 10 global high-growth firms with a minimum of 1 lakh highly proficient jobs in the startup ecosystem by 2023. The program called Tamil Nadu Startup Funds of Funds will have its first transaction of 25 crore for the financial year 2019-2020. The management of FoF(Funds of Funds) is assisted to be managed by a professional financial agency such as the SIDBI(Small Industries Development Bank of India), as communicated by Tamil Nadu Startup and Innovation Policy. The policy aims to provide an enabling, innovative ecosysem in the state and believes to support emergence of at least 5,000 technological startups.

According to the policy, “It will be registered as an Alternative Investment Fund(AIF) under Securities and Exchange Board of India(SEBI) regulation, 2012. The fund will be invested in other SEBI registered AIFs for investment in Startups and MSMEs established in Tamil Nadu. Government of Tamil Nadu will invest Rs 75 crore in the fund.”

Tamil Nadu Startup Speed Grant Fund (TNSSGF) of 50 crore with an allocation of Rs 5 crore, adds an alliance with financial institutions and universities. This is perhaps to record the nativity to financing support, requiring to amplify and refine the find requirements through out. The startups are applied in the form of grants for the researcher innovations. This fund also heads to provide funding for Idea-to-PoC(Proof of Concept) degrees.

Noting the recent policy of the state Tamil Nadu, the startups were categorised specifying certain entities, while Tamil Nadu tied with the MeitY(Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology) that led to the setting up of a Centre of Excellence(CoE) for FinTech Startups at STPI, Chennai:

• A subsidiary of a firm in the State, except subsidiary of a start-up itself which also qualifies as start-up and the combined entity also satisfies the start-up criteria
• Entities formed by splitting up or reconstruction of a business already in existence
• A franchisee of an existing business in the state, entities promoted or sponsored by or related to an industrial group in the state whose group turnover exceeds Rs 300 crore.

Following the policy, PSU(Central Public Sector Undertakings) will be enlivened for channelizing the corporate social responsibility(CSR) funds and adopting the incubators for the benefits of state and startups in order. The incubators brought about in the policy are justified to serve as an avant-garde which is summarised to solve problems faced either by the state or the PSU. In order to support the two-way outcome, PSUs and the state will support the startups while having access to data, platform, test bed or the other facilities.

IIT-Madras reveals a benefaction with TNeGA teaming up for various aspects towards governance, which includes education, agriculture, healthcare. Thereof, Tamil Nadu now convenes and aims on the agenda to ruminate AI(Artificial Intelligence), IoT(Internet of Things) and Blockchain, leading to technological proficiency.

Source :: business-standard.com