Tue. Mar 19th, 2024

IIM Bangalore‘s incubation centre NSRCEL, has partnered with Mphasis, an IT services company, to support early-stage social ventures.

The initiative is part of IIM Bangalore’s Social Incubation Programme. The program aims to incubate and support ‘for profit’ social ventures in their early stages.

It will help the startups that have been operational for one to three years, by helping them build financially sustainable and scalable working models in education, livelihood and disability sectors, through the incubation period lasting 12-18 months.

Talking on the partnership, Srikanth Karra, Chief Human Resources Officer, Mphasis, said, “It is essential that social enterprises also get the right kind of support in mainstream incubators to ensure they can make telling contributions within the industry space. Our partnership with IIMB is aimed at addressing this issue and through the facilities and mentorship support, we hope to enable the selected social ventures to achieve their highest potential.”

A total of 16 startups were selected from more than 550 applications. These startups went through a pre-incubation period of three months.

After the pre-incubation programme, the selected startups were given an opportunity to pitch before an advisory council for selection in the incubation program which will be for a period of 12-18 months.

Here are the five startups selected for the incubation programme, that will last 12 to 18 months:

  • TAXSHE Services Private Limited: Bengaluru-based women driver on-call taxi startup TAXSHE Services was founded by Vandana Suri in 2015. It aims to create a safe environment for families to move around with the help of its army of women drivers.
  • ECONUT Coconut Producer Company:  Bengaluru-based Econut Coconut Producer Company Limited (ECPCL), established in May 2015, is a Farmer Producer Organisation which is a joint initiative of the farmers of mysore and Coconut Development Board(CDB), Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers welfare (Government of India).
  • Blink Research and Services: Blink Research and Services enables businesses to provide enhanced customer experience and boost sales by providing competitive intelligence and social analytics.
  • ThinkZone: Founded by Binayak Acharya, ThinkZone is a social impact startup that enables women entrepreneurs to drive technology-based learning in low-income communities.
  • Rural Caravan: Nasik-based Rural Caravan is a social enterprise envisioned to design ecosystems for rural livelihood generation and thereby create rural entrepreneurs.

These startups would receive an entrepreneurial grant and will be supported through a series of curated events and workshops aimed at addressing specific challenges and areas of assistance required.

Additionally, these ventures will also be able to avail on-site infrastructure as well as expand their network through interactions with ecosystem partners, IIMB faculty, alumni and subject matter experts.

By Varun

Startups | Books | Ideas

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