The Indian Chamber of Commerce (ICC) signed a memorandum of understanding with the IIM Calcutta Innovation Park on Wednesday to help facilitate incubation of start-ups.

With focus on developing a start-up ecosystem, primarily in the eastern and north eastern States, the MoU will help start-up entrepreneurs access ICC’s member network, thereby allowing a larger platform for their offerings. It will also help them work through policy issues and other compliance matters, facilitate funding and also ensure B2B and B2G interactions.

The IIM-Calcutta Innovation Park will incubate and handhold the start-ups, and provide them training and mentorship.

“ICC has initiated a start-up incubation cell to handhold start-ups across the country. Taking our initiative a step further, we are signing the MoU with the IIM Calcutta Innovation Park to promote entrepreneurship and innovation,” Rajeev Singh, Director- General, ICC, said.

IIM-Calcutta Innovation Park is a not-for-profit company and is currently incubating 40 start-ups and will add 10 more by the end of this fiscal.

According to Subhrangshu Sanyal, CEO, the company has in the last two years selected 25-odd start-ups for incubation. Most of these start-ups are revenue generating and have reported a cumulative turnover of ₹50 crore in FY18 (last fiscal).

“The focus is on start-ups that make a socio-economic impact,” he said