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Aimed at providing sustained hand-holding and financial support to start-ups, Ahmedabad-based Aashray Incubator — an arm of InCube Ventures Pvt Ltd — on Monday launched its first Aashray Centre for Translational Research in Ahmedabad.
The translational laboratory will be engaged in conducting and facilitating cutting-edge scientific research and tech innovations, besides providing financial support in the form of grants or seed funding to commercially viable and socially impactful ideas.
Translational research is research that moves an idea past the basic discovery stage towards and through proof-of-concept, prototyping, scaling-up and implementation.
The lab will train fresh graduates to become independent entrepreneurs oriented towards high-technology areas such as nanotechnology, non-destructive testing and technologies, biotechnology, ICT, electronics, prototyping, piloting and designing.
Mani Iyer, Chairman, Aashray, said the idea behind the lab is to foster disruptive research and innovations into market-viable solutions.
“We have received a commitment of ₹25 crore from the National Skill Development Corporation to establish the lab, and also commitments from institutions such as SIDBI, IFCI, NABARD and the Department of Science and Technology, which will make for 40 per cent of the fund size of Incube Connect Fund,” Iyer said.
By 2020, Aashray plans to set up five clusters, through such labs, across India with about 100 incubatees each, and an R&D infrastructure to the tune of ₹250 crore.
Of these, around 30-40 per cent projects will be based on hardcore technology, and the rest will be social enterprises. Aashray, which has created a SEBI-registered Aashray Endowment Fund, aims to have institutional and high-network individual investors invest in the fund.
Rajendra Joshi, Managing Director, Aashray, said: “We aim to grow investment funds to ₹2,500 crore by setting up sector-focussed venture investment funds for start-ups in healthcare, environment, agriculture, food and nutrition, energy, habitat/dwelling, R&D, women entrepreneurship, education and empowerment.”
In subsequent phases, similar translational labs will be set up at Chennai, Warangal, Indore, Jharkhand and Odisha.
Set up in 2014, Aashray has 20 incubatees representing both technological and social enterprises.
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