Financial Support

Introduction

Micro venture Innovation fund is a national level incubation funds set up with financial assistance of Rs 40 millions from SIDBI. It is mandated to catalyze linkage of indigenous knowledge from grassroots with market forces. It is one of its own kind of initiative in the entire world undertaken by National Innovation Foundation (NIF), which aims to provide much needed fillip to the process of formation of large number of micro, and small enterprises based on grassroots innovations. This initiative hopefully will bring about sustainable development by creating large number of employment besides wealth creation for all stakeholders across value chain with innovator being the primary stakeholder.

On 2nd October 2003, MVIF was announced operational by NIF. It has experience of incubating grassroots technologies and example of traditional knowledge in the last so many years. Through this fund in coming years it aims to convince the policy makers about the need for supporting small innovators in a major way.

Vision:

Incentivize Grassroots innovation and examples of traditional knowledge through value addition and commercialization

Goal:

To catalyze technical incubation and commercialization process of grassroots innovations by providing much needed capital support to entrepreneurs/innovators at early stages of enterprise development.

Objectives of the MVIF:

a) Provide a means of finance for innovation and traditional knowledge-based micro-ventures, which are generally not given any priority by other Venture Capital Funds and Financial Institutions (FIs).
b) Provide a means of finance for managing the technology development life cycle which includes Prototype Development, Technical Validations & Benchmarking, Field Trials, Market Research, Certification by Regulatory Authorities, Protection of Intellectual Property, Promotions and Dissemination.
c) Offer innovative and flexible Financing Options for the seed capital and working capital requirements. These could be tailor-made to the needs of grassroots’ entrepreneurs and enable them in minimizing the financial risk associated with their ventures.

Management:

The MVIF operates within the guidelines and the framework prepared by NIF operationalised through governing board and incubation committee. However the delivery functions like project appraisal, disbursement, monitoring & mentoring and recovery are being taken care by its incubation partners e.g. Grassroots Innovation Augmentation Network (GIANs) and other associates of NIF.

Incubation Advisory Committee

The first one, the Incubation Committee is an advisory body with high profile members having illustrative careers in the areas of Technologies incubation and Management.

1. Mr. Rahul Patwardhan (CEO, India Co), Chair
2. Prof. Pankaj Chandra (Professor, IIM Ahmedabad)
3. Prof. V R Gaekwad (Retired Professor, IIM Ahmedabad)
4. Prof. P.K. Sinha (Professor, IIM Ahmedabad)
5. Prof Sharad Sarin, Professor, XLRI, Jamshedpur

Fund Management Committee

The second committee, the Fund Management Committee is an executive body which has following representation from SIDBI and NIF;

1. Chief Innovation Officer, NIF, Chair
2. Mr. A.C.Sahu, Deputy General Manager, SIDBI
3. Prof. M S Sriram, Professor, IIM Ahmedabad
4. National Coordinator- Business development (BD), NIF
5. National Coordinator – Value Addition through R&D (VARD), NIF

Sanctioning Authority

The sanctioning authority is vested with two tiered fund management committee of MVIF.

For proposal seeking assistance of less than Rs 2 lac, Internal committee consisting of
- Chief Innovation Officer
- National Coordinator, Business development
- National Coordinator, Value addition and research &and development.

For the proposal seeking assistance in excess of Rs 2 lac goes to the Fund Management Committee of MVIF with representation from both NIF and SIDBI.

Innovation categories for financial assistance
The MVIF would invest in all domains and sectors i.e.

1. Agri - plant variety
2. Agriculture machinery and farm implement
3. Agro based Food processing machinery
4. AC /ventilation machinery & Equipment
5. Auto components, accessories & garage equipment
6. Construction & building equipment
7. Consumer durables
8. Dairy machinery
9. Earth moving and excavator machine
10. General machinery & equipment
11. Electronic gadgets
12. Energy conservation and generation technology (renewable and non renewable )
13. Environment management technology
14. Transport
15. Traditional knowledge
16. Herbal formulation for animal
17. Herbal formulation for plants /crops
18. Mixed return (social and commercial) technology

Eligibility Criteria for MVIF Support:

- Should be an ‘Accepted’ entry at NIF, which means it should be an unaided, Green, Grassroots’ technological innovation or a traditional knowledge practice from a person having non-professional background with established ownership of knowledge.
- The support may be given to the innovator, incubator, entrepreneurs and/or their facilitator.
- The technology should be practically workable / demonstrable as per the original claims made by the innovator;
- It should be a cost effective, overall efficient and effective (e.g. reduces drudgery) solution to any problem as compared to existing solutions/products
- It should have foreseeable market demand and good commercial potential as appears in NIF's research;
- It should have novelty either in Form, Function or Feature or all of the above, but may or may not be a patentable item;
- High social impact would be advantageous
- Special preference would be given to technologies originating from and/or for women, handicapped, other marginalized sections of our society
- Special preference would also be given to NIF awarded innovations.

Project Assistance

The project assistance shall include infrastructural support from the organization and our network partner, participation in fairs, exhibition. Financial assistance provided under this project shall be returnable on cost plus basis to support incubation expense incurred by NIF and its coordinating agencies, varying on case to case basis.

Financial assistance overhead
(Expenses which are directly identifiable to a project) .

• Financial Assistance for Prototype Development
• Financial Assistance for Testing, Validation & Certification
• Financial Assistance for Market Research/ Test-Marketing
• Financial Assistance towards Commercialization of Technology
• Financial Assistance towards Dissemination/ Demonstration /Market Support (Promotion/Advertisement)
• Financial Assistance towards IP protection
• Financial Assistance towards Quality Systems (Instruments/ third party Validation etc)

Decision Support System