IIM Kashipur’s Foundation for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development (FIED) has helped facilitate ₹5 crore funding for 15 agri start-ups at Uttishtha 2023, its annual entrepreneurship summit recently.
The initiative, supported by the Agriculture Ministry, aims to bring socio-economic value in Uttarakhand’s entrepreneur ecosystem by enabling the raw entrepreneurs to achieve their dreams. Uttishtha 2023 also hosted over 100 start-ups and nearly 20 venture capitalists to exchange their interests, a statement said.
Kulbhushan Balooni, Director, IIM Kashipur said, “We are creating socio-economic impact in the home State by promoting the entrepreneurship with the support of State and Centre. The FIED team has incubated over 140 start-ups, which have generated direct employment of over 1,200 and have impacted over half a million farmers.”
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Safal Batra, Director of FIED, “We have seen our incubators team going in the exterior and the remotest places in the State to identify the entrepreneurs with unique business ideas who can represent the future of Indian business. The third generation of farmers are not limited to crop cultivation but are expanding into food processing and setting start-ups. By facilitating the right platform for bringing the right human resources, branding, investors, larger market place, price and packaging, we put them into the main stream business.”
Some of the IIM Kashipur FIED incubated start-ups success stories include Bijak, LoopWorm, Greenpod Labs among others. Business ideas presented at the event include clothing range made from bamboo fabric, interior design articles made from cow dung, a crockery range made from bamboo, a range of toys made from wood waste, a drone for pesticide spraying in agricultural fields, honey-coated dry fruits, organic fertilizer, wellness products, handicrafts and hand-knits, as well as an immunity booster made from agricultural produce, incense sticks made of recycled flowers among others.