MVIF

Micro Venture Innovation Fund (MVIF)

Objectives of the MVIF:

The broad purpose behind MVIF was to bridge the glaring gap in completing the Golden Triangle of Creativity by bringing in Investments to Innovations in order to create viable micro Enterprises at grassroots. However, specific objectives of MVIF are spelt as below; 

• 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).

• 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 IntellectualProperty, Promotions and Dissemination.

• 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.

The MVIF operates within the guidelines and the framework prepared by NIF under the guidance provided by governing board and incubation committee. However the delivery functions like project appraisal, disbursement, monitoring & mentoring and recovery are being taken care by the regional arms of NIF e.g. Grassroots Innovation
Augmentation Network (GIANs) and collaborators.

Two important committees
are constituted for proper implementation of MVIF. The first one, the Incubation Committee is an advisory body with high profile members having illustrative careers in the areas of Incubation and Management.

1. Mr. Rahul Patwardhan (CEO, India Co), Chai
2. Prof.Pankaj Chandra (Professor, IIM Ahmedabad)
3. Prof. V R Gaekwad
   (Retired Professor, IIM Ahmedabad)
4. Prof.P.K. Sinha (Professor, IIM Ahmedabad)

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 SSriram, Professor, IIM Ahmedabad
4. 
   National Coordinator-Business development(BD),NIF
5. 
   National Coordinator – Value Addition through R&D (VARD),NIF

The MVIF would invest in all domains and sectors, which are categorized as below in the NIF’s National Register of Grassroots Innovations;

• Agriculture
• Engineering
• Animal Science
• Forestry
• Transport
• Human Health Practices
• Energy Conservation/Generation
• Natural Resource Management
• Innovations from Artisans and Households
• Idea

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 technology should be practically workable/demonstrable as per the original claims made by the innovator;
• Should be a cost effective, overall efficient and effective (e.g. reduces drudgery) solution to any problem as compared to existing solutions/products
• Should have foreseeable market demand  and good commercial potential;
• Should have novelty either in Form, Function or Feature or all of the above, but may or may not be a patentable item;
• Having 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.

The Incubation Process:

The NIF and GIANs carry out following process of incubation  with the potential intervention of MVIF as given in the following illustration 

Some of the MVIF support given to various innovators/innovations are
as follows: 

Value Chain in National Innovation Foundation and Intervention of business Model                                                                                                                   


                                          

L1 – L7 are the various licensing opportunities during the incubation process.

Possible business models

1) Licensing (each of the options L1 to L7)

With/without value addition/incubation support:

2) Innovator wants to be an entrepreneur

3) A hybrid of first and second categories

Go for territorial licensing and find an entrepreneur for other regions

4) Create a large number of micro enterprises

(Buy the rights of the technology from the innovator and license it to a number of third party entrepreneurs for a nominal price)  

5) Franchise the technology to a federation of self help groups

(Collect the royalty and share it with the innovator and his/her community and innovators’ fund)

6) Pool best practices, generate new products and give risk capital to a third party enterprise.

Share benefits with those whose knowledge/inputs have been pooled

7) Provide risk capital to a third party entrepreneur for setting up a new venture based on an innovation / TK.

8) Joint venture between innovator and entrepreneur. The fund may also participate as an equity
partner.   

The areas, highlighted in red numbers are listed below;

1.  Technological assessment
2.  Market feasibility
3.  Designing and prototyping the product
4.  Test marketing
5.  Preparing an applicable business plan
6.  Licensing / Technology transfer
7.  Franchising the technology to SHGs
8.  Scouting for an entrepreneur

Detailed List of MVIF Project under different Organisation under NIF