Incube Connect Fund, India’s first social venture fund registered by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) early this year, has received approval for its first institutional contribution of Rs 20 crore from the Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) towards the corpus.

The Ahmedabad-based Incube, which aims to collect a corpus of Rs 200 crore for investment in four sectors impacting the life of people, would complete first closure by collecting nearly Rs 75 crore in the next four to six weeks, Mani Iyer, Founder of Incube Group, told Business Line on Monday.

The fund was registered with the regulator under the SEBI (AIF) Regulations, 2012.

“We are in an advanced stage of our deliberations with various contributors, including PSU banks and insurance companies”, he said.

Prof Arun K. Tiwari, former scientist at the Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO), and a close associate of former President of India, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, is the Chairman of Incube Ventures Pvt Ltd.

It has been promoted by Iyer for primarily incubating, mentoring, providing seed capital and angel investments to nascent business ideas of social ventures, and promoting differentiated high social impact technology.

In recent past, the Incube Mentor Group has brought on board Vishnu Swaminathan, India Country Director of Ashoka India, Venkat Changawalli, first CEO of EMRI, and Manoj Chakravarti, COO at the Centre for Corporate Governance and Citizenship, IIM-Bangalore, Mani said.

Incube Connect, a Rs 200-crore sector-agnostic fund, will primarily focus on four sectors: healthcare delivery-product and services, vocational education and skill enhancement, clean energy and eco business and sustainable rural business innovations.

“Some of the projects that Incube is looking closely at include a geothermal energy project, a project for evolving healthcare delivery ecosystem in one of the most backward districts of the country, a project for fractionation of blood plasma and an innovative financial model for affordable housing for the vulnerable sections of the society,” he said.

Incube Ventures was incorporated in 2010 under the Companies Act, 1956.The current authorised share capital is Rs 10 crore and the subscribed and paid-up capital is Rs 5 crore.

S. Sridhar, former Chairman and Managing Director of Central Bank of India, is the Chairman of Incube Trustees Co Pvt Ltd.

He will be overseeing the statutory compliance of Incube and guide the fund in statutory and governance aspects. The targeted corpus of Incube will primarily be invested in opportunities presented in the space which contributes to social cause significantly apart from generating reasonable returns for the investors.

“The objective of Incube is to back entrepreneurs typically at the bottom of the pyramid in terms of their ability to raise capital, partner them, and take them into ecosystem to nurture and grow them to be investor-ready,” Iyer added.

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