YES BANK Partners With Punjab Government To Support The State’s Startups

In a bid to extend its services and products to the state, and offer mentorship guidance to startups in Punjab, YES BANK has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the state government’s Startup Punjab initiative.

The MoU was signed by Rajat Agarwal, CEO, Invest Punjab and MD, Punjab Infotech as well as Nikhil Sahni, group president – government & multinational corporate banking and knowledge banking, YES BANK during the ‘Scaling-Up Startup Businesses’ event organised by YES BANK in partnership with Invest Punjab and Punjab Infotech last week.

According to DataLabs by Inc42, Punjab has 1,000+ active startups and about 140 startups are registered with the Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) and the number is increasing every day.

By partnering with Startup Punjab, YES BANK aims to create a platform where emerging entrepreneurs and startups can engage with key ecosystem players including advisors and government stakeholders. The MoU seeks to offer services to startups such as curated corporate and commercial banking services, knowledge workshops and handholding sessions with mentors, experts and advisors.

Speaking at the event, Agarwal said, “The state government’s mission is to create a conducive ecosystem for startups by implementing a policy and framework that enables entrepreneurs to scale their businesses. This is done by fostering industry-academia linkages, industry linkages for startups and building an entrepreneurial culture. The collaboration between YES BANK and Startup Punjab will go a long way in boosting the startup ecosystem in the state.”

YES BANK’s flagship Innovation and Industry Connect Programme supports entrepreneurs in the journey to become market-ready, scale-up startup innovations, while working along with industry leaders to bring mentors, investors, technology companies and advisors to these startups. The programme includes:

• YES SCALE: a multi-sector industry connect platform to help scale innovations in key impact sectors of the economy such as supply chain and logistics, cleantech and urbantech, agritech, edtech, life sciences and healthtech
• YES: HEAD-STARTUP: a dedicated banking proposition for startups including an exclusive alliance programme to get access to mentors, investor groups, cloud services and co-working spaces

YES BANK’s Sahni added, “The startup ecosystem in India is thriving with all the stimulus and support it is receiving through progressive measures including Startup India and Digital India. YES BANK is fully committed to working with central and state governments to help in further strengthening of the ecosystem.”

To help startups understand the strategy and takeaways of building a successful startup, the event had presentations from a few of the most prominent names in the agritech space. These were A2P Energy Solutions, AgNext Technologies and MoooFarm.