IIMB’s NSRCEL and YSBFB join hands to support social businesses from rural India

Bengaluru

NSRCEL, the innovation and entrepreneurship hub of IIM Bangalore, has signed an MoU with Yunus Social Business Fund Bengaluru (YSBFB), the pioneers in social business financing and scaling.

NSRCEL’s Impact Orbit Incubation vertical recently launched its first-ever Rural Entrepreneurship Incubation programme. The programme aims to identify, nurture and scale social innovations in rural India. It is the first foray for NSRCEL to understand the challenges to scale for-profit impact businesses from rural India. NSRCEL will support nine early-stage start-ups in scaling their revenues through specialized businesses and investment-readiness training through this programme. The goal of this incubation programme is to support at least 25 per cent of the cohort to double their revenue and to directly impact 500-700 livelihoods and indirectly benefit 2500-3000 lives.

While NSRCEL is leading the incubation programme, YSBFB will facilitate modules on investment readiness, working capital management, and exposure to different forms of funding, including an opportunity for two ventures to raise debt from the fund.

Anand Sri Ganesh, COO, NSRCEL, says, “The COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting digitization helped NSRCEL serve entrepreneurs from all over. We also started to see first-time founders moving to rural areas, noticing a local problem or a market opportunity, and innovating for the same. This incubation programme is a result of unearthing such ventures with a focus on innovative route-to-market solutions &and rural livelihood creation, especially employing local women. We are excited to work with an experienced partner like YSBFB, which has worked with such ventures globally in other emerging markets like Kenya, Uganda, Colombia and Brazil. We look forward to having (the) YSBFB team engage with our ventures during our November Bootcamp and ready them for future investments in the impact ecosystem.”

Suresh K Krishna, CEO, YSBFB, says, “YSBFB has always supported social businesses that intrinsically work with rural populations, creating decentralized livelihood opportunities or enabling access to essential products and services. The Rural Entrepreneurship Programme comes at an opportune time to build back a resilient India. YSBFB is thrilled to partner with NSRCEL, which has for the last many years promoted the entrepreneurship movement in India.”