NSRCEL, the start-up hub of IIM Bangalore, has onboarded the first batch of start-ups dedicated to a particular domain – Fintech – in a one-year programme sponsored by financial services firm, ICICI Securities. This was the result of several months of effort by the NSRCEL team and IIMB’s Development Office. Apart from being in a specific domain, the programme also differs from NSRCEL’s regular offerings by bringing in later stage ventures with more targeted needs, says a press release from the B-school.
“NSRCEL is starting with 25 start-ups spread across diverse areas like trading, payments, lending and wealth advisory/portfolio management. Some of them are in exciting areas like the MSME space and are perfectly positioned for the post-COVID world,” says Professor Venkatesh Panchapagesan, Chair, NSRCEL.
NSRCEL plans to add Agri-tech and Health-tech soon to its portfolio of incubation programmes. For the latter, NSRCEL runs an innovation challenge with elite institutions (Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences, the nodal university for all medical colleges in Karnataka, IISc, IIIT-B, Bangalore Bioinnovation Centre or BBC) for ideas to address Covid-related medical issues. NSRCEL will be the incubation partner along with BBC (which will provide access to high-tech labs) for the winners of this challenge. The challenge was flagged off by the Prime Minister and is supported by the Karnataka government.