IAN Partners GIZ & SIDBI To Launch An Incubation Program For Social Enterprise Startups

Indian Angel Network (IAN) has announced the launch of an incubation program in association with Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, and the Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) to empower entrepreneurs in building sustainable and scalable businesses in the social impact space.

The IAN Incubator aims to incubate & nurture over a 100 social enterprises, and through this initiative it will help the startups to create and breed sustainable enterprises which will create positive impact on the lives of our citizens and also create wealth for the promoters and returns for the investors.

This initiative will help bring money, mentors and market access for these focused startup companies. The intention is to provide strategic thought leadership, high quality mentoring and financial investment to sustainable ventures.

Mohit Goyal, co-founder, Indian Angel Network said, “In a country of the size and scale of India, socially relevant startups which can make difference to the society, are of great importance… IAN’s intention is to create a significant difference in creating social impact by helping and guiding passionate entrepreneurs scale up their ventures so that the good work done in pockets is extended over a larger population and geography.”

How will this work?

• The IAN-GIZ-SIDBI Incubation Program for Social Enterprises is open to all the social impact startups based in India.
• Shortlisted applications will be assigned business mentors from the IAN mentor / investors pool, comprising of successful entrepreneurs, investors and senior professionals.
• Incubatee will undergo a 6 to 9 month incubation period, refining its business plan, sales strategy, some customer endorsement and access to angel investors and other funding sources.

Stefanie Bauer, Advisor Private Sector Development, GIZ said, “GIZ and SIDBI are aiming to strengthen the eco-system for startups and social enterprises in India. We know that capital alone is not the challenge for bringing business models to scale. Much more efforts are needed to increase the number of scalable and investible social enterprises that develop solutions in important sector such as healthcare, water, sanitation, energy or education.”

Ajay K. Kapur, Head (International Co-operation Vertical), SIDBI also see this effort as a major link for creating a large funnel of social enterprises for investors and other stakeholders desirous of lending to or supporting businesses benefiting the poor.

“GIZ understands the social impact sector deeply, and IAN’s members add tremendous value to help entrepreneurs scale up, create a good business case and thereby be able to attract investors. Leveraging innovation and entrepreneurship will bring a paradigm change to the lives of two thirds of our citizens but with first generational, successful entrepreneurs turned angel investors, IAN looks to bring strategic guidance, operational direction, domain expertise and market access to each such venture,” Vikram Upadhyay, Board member, IAN Incubator.

Indian Angel Network had launched “IAN Impact”, a specialized division with a key focus on empowering socially relevant ventures in the country in July 2013.

In the last two years IAN has invested around a million dollars a month in almost 30 companies, which makes over a deal a month.