Odisha Proposes Rs 100 Crore Fund For Start-Ups

Bhubaneswar: The Odisha government has decided to float a fund of Rs 100 crore to provide seed funding to start-ups in the state for the next three to five years as per requirement.

The decision was taken at a high-level meeting presided over by Chief Secretary Asit Tripathy at Lok Seva Bhawan here on Friday.

The meeting also resolved to mobilise effective venture funds from private and corporate sectors for constituting the “Fund of Funds” to strengthen the start-up ecosystem in Odisha and scale up capital to such ventures.

Officials said the comparative benefits and failures of different venture fund models were discussed at the meeting.

Keeping in view the situation in Odisha, it was considered that the ‘Fund of Funds’ model would be more helpful and easy to access for the state-based start-ups. Accordingly, the Chief Secretary directed officials to examine this model and formulate a detailed proposal.

He also advised the departments concerned to augment the start-up ecosystem in Odisha by filling up critical gaps through convergence to attract private venture capitals.

Industry Secretary Hemant Kumar Sharma said so far, 500 start-ups have been registered from which 57 per cent were incorporated during and after 2017. Among the incorporated units, around 150 are led by women.

Besides, 13 incubator centres are operating in Odisha, including IIT-Bhubaneswar, NIST, NIIT, KIIT, Rabi Sankar University.

The Odisha Start-up Policy has set the target to launch 1000 start-ups by end of March, 2021. Sharma said Odisha has been ranked top performer in States Startup Ranking 2018 by Department for Promotion of Industry and International Trade of the Centre.