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Nachiket Kulkarni
AVP - NSRCEL Impact Orbit |
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Nachiket Kulkarni has more than a decade of professional experience across large corporate, Social Entrepreneurship & Startups. After managing Intel’s Data Centre inventory in the US for many years, Nachi crossed over to the social sector in India – with Villgro and Sustaintech, before branching off to be an entrepreneur with Vendo. For the last 2 years, Nachiket has been heading the Social entrepreneurship vertical at NSRCEL,known as Impact Orbit. He, along with the team has scaled the incubation initiatives for Impact Orbit to become India's Largest Social Enterprise Incubator, by volume of startups to be incubated.
His other interests include Alternate Fundraising & Investment Platforms & understanding technology as enabler in the social impact space. He has an undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering from Anna University, a master’s in industrial management from Clemson University.
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Shriyam Yagnik
Program Associate - NSRCEL Impact Orbit |
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Shriyam Yagnik holds a Master's degree in Development from Azim Premji University, Bangalore and a B.Sc. in Economics from Loreto College, Kolkata. Her passion lies in addressing gender and climate issues, which she has pursued through internships with social start-ups such as Khetee Trust and Shreni Samudaya. At NSRCEL she focuses on Rural Entrepreneurship and Circular Economy initiatives. In addition to her primary role, Shriyam is also responsible for Impact Metrics and Measurement for the Impact Orbit vertical at NSRCEL.
About NSRCEL
NSRCEL, is the start-up incubator of IIMB that is recognised by the Govt. of India. and was founded in the year 2000. Over 585+ and over 1300+ ventures have gone through the Incubation and Launchpad program respectively contributing to over 6900 direct jobs.
NSRCEL is also the first incubator with a program tailored for social entrepreneurs and their unique challenges. It brings together startups, industry mentors, eminent academicians from its parent institution Indian Institute of Management Bangalore and researchers who thrive on continuous interaction of theory and practice.
With programs specifically catering to entrepreneurs with profit ventures and social ventures, also student and women entrepreneurs, NSRCEL offers its support to various players of the startup ecosystem. NSRCEL is also supported by Niti Aayog, Department of Science and Technology and Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Govt. Of India.
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1 NSRCEL has been incubating early to growth stage, for-profit and nonprofit ventures that present a path for growth as well as sustained impact. Could you share with our readers your approach and thesis on identifying and supporting for-profit enterprises which are impact focussed?
It would also be great to understand a little more about the programs focussed on impact enterprises and as well as the nature of support that they extend to incubatees.
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The primary goal of NSRCEL’s Social Entrepreneurship vertical, Impact Orbit, is to identify and support early-stage impact-first enterprises and build them to be sustainable and scalable. The long-term vision is to demonstrate a model for social entrepreneurship incubation, which can be replicated at other incubation hubs.
From 2017 to 2023, NSRCEL has incubated 100+ ventures, who have created 12,000+ jobs and impacted 1.3+ million lives. NSRCEL has deployed Rs 21+ crore grants in funding, and ventures have gone on to raise follow-on funding of Rs 30+ crores. With an aim to incubate ~200 more ventures in 2023-2025, NSRCEL’s Impact Orbit is priming itself to be the largest social enterprise incubator in India by volume of start-ups incubated, and the only one incubating both for-profits & non-profits at
this scale.
NSRCEL has a multi-stage review process in selecting the top ventures for the incubation program. Through extensive outreach including press releases, webinars, AMAs, industry level events & digital marketing via social media, social entrepreneurs across the country are invited to submit their applications online for the programs. The submitted applications are reviewed first by the Impact Orbit program team based on certain set parameters and eligibility criteria. Lastly, the selected ventures are invited to present to a panel of experts from the NSRCEL and the partner ecosystem. Eligibility criteria varies on a case-by-case basis for different programs, as decided mutually by the impact orbit team, program sponsors and other relevant stakeholders.
Broadly, NSRCEL’s Impact Orbit runs incubation programs supporting social enterprises across 3 themes- Technology for Impact, Circular Economy & Rural Innovations
1. The tech-enabled social innovations incubation program, in partnership with Capgemini, is the largest Social Enterprise Incubation program in the country. NSRCEL’s mandate is to incubate 120 early-stage tech enabled social innovations (sector agnostic) from 2023 to 2025, across 8 cohorts, with a portfolio spread equally across for-profits & non-profits business models. This is being achieved by conducting rolling applications. currently the 3rd cohort (Orbit-3) of the program is currently running, and applications for Orbit-4 will be considered for evaluation in March’24. More details here- https://nsrcel.org/tech-enabled-social-innovations/
2. Circular Economy Incubation Program
NSRCEL is nearing the completion of its first incubation program in circular economy, in partnership with Pernod Ricard India
Foundation (PRIF). The incubation portfolio consists of start-ups innovating in sectors like waste management, alternate
materials in textile, construction, and other similar innovations, mostly catering to the BoP. More details here-
https://nsrcel.org/circular-economy-incubation-program/
3. Rural innovations
In 2023, NSRCEL concluded its bootstrapped effort to support nine early-stage start-up innovations driving long-term livelihood generation in remote rural geographies. The goal of this incubation program was to create ambassadors of social innovators in rural India and working with tribal or disadvantaged communities working as FPOs, or artisanal groups. More details here-
https://nsrcel.org/rural-entrepreneurship-program/
As impact orbit intends to build a larger vertical in spaces such as circular economy & rural innovations (agriculture & allied rural livelihoods), it is currently looking for strategic partners to support incubation programs for 80-100 start-ups in this space, over the next 2-3 years.
The nature of support is structured around 4 components (financial and non-financial) that NSRCEL extends to the incubates)
1. Financial Support
All funded programs at NSRCEL have a grant component of the order of 10-30L either directly via funded corporate programs or indirectly via partnering with govt arms like MeitY TIDE 2.0, Start-up India Seed Fund, NIDHI SSS etc. Apart from this, top ventures are rewarded with an opportunity to present their work to a diversified network of funders from HNIs, CSRs, philanthropic foundations, to venture capital, impact funds or other innovative/ alternate financing platforms.
2. Non-Financial Support
- Capacity Building
Core part of the non-financial support is capacity building and readiness for above funding opportunities. Modules delivered by either IIMB Faculty or industry SMEs covering topics around impact metrics frameworks, Clarity in Value Proposition & GTM, working with the government, technology product road mapping constitute the program components.
- Mentoring & Networks
Opportunities to get mentored by an appropriate SME, and access to networks like our alumni entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs from non-impact sectors, and the larger IIMB ecosystem complete the offerings provided by us, that are unique to NSRCEL Impact Orbit.
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2 Could you share with our readers, the approximate sector wise split of your incubate enterprises, operating in the for-profit social impact space?
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Among for-profit start-ups incubated in 2023 across NSRCEL Impact Orbit incubation programs, 52% are driving tech-enabled social innovations, 32% are circular economy ventures, and 9% are focused on rural livelihoods.
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3 ‘Impact Investing’ has been fast gaining traction in India, with financial institutions and investors aligning their investment thesis to align commercial and social returns. Based on your experience of incubating enterprises, what has been your observation on the nature of innovations that are coming up?
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Over the course of the last few incubation programs for tech-enabled impact ventures, NSRCEL has seen a transition in the
type of start-ups onboarded and applications received. There has been a noticeable change in the ecosystem getting saturated
with impact start-ups working in the education sector. This could reflect the venture capital funding and governance issues
that were exposed in the commercial start-ups’ ecosystem.
Ventures working in the intersection of agriculture, climate and technology have also seen an upward trend in the ecosystem. Start-ups addressing one or more of these sectors have been growing in numbers in the recent past. NSRCEL has supported ventures like Farmers for Forests that works to protect and increase India’s biodiverse forest cover in close partnership with rural communities and Greenpod Labs that uses natural plant extracts to activate the inbuilt defence mechanism and extends the shelf life of fruits and vegetables. It is also currently working with start-ups like GreenWins, (ArthAgri), an agri-tech venture offering a SaaS platform designed for Farmer Producer Companies (FPC’s) which empowers FPC’s to transform their data.
Through the course of multiple cohorts, NSRCEL has also witnessed a pattern in ventures who started off as non-profits, setting up parallel for-profit entities as they grow. NSRCEL aims to identify the changing trends in the ecosystem and evolve its interventions based on the same.
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4 NSRCEL has set up the Circular & Climate Smart Agriculture Program. Given that this segment is seeing interest from investors, could you share some examples from your portfolio that demonstrate the path to both, growth and impact, in the sector of climate smart agriculture and circular economy? What were the unique aspects of their business models that have stood out?
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Launched in April 2023, this one-year program is a pioneering effort by NSRCEL and PRIF to nurture and scale 20 ground-breaking innovations within the Circular Economy realm. The cohort boasts of start-ups in the alternate consumption, alternate construction, and waste management space.
Green-Banana is a venture working on alternate materials in construction space uses plastic waste to produce bricks which are not only planet-friendly but also lighter and contain interlocking technology for increased sturdiness. The cohort also comprises ventures providing alternate consumption solutions to existing products like GudGum which is a consumer brand producing India’s first plastic-free chewing gum and Sunbird Straws, which makes eco-friendly straws from dried coconut leaves. Sunbird Straws not only provides an eco-friendly substitute for straws but also provides an additional income source to small coconut farmers by purchasing dried coconut leaves which would otherwise be burnt.
Consumer awareness and behavioural changes along with policy guidelines play a key role in affecting the pricing and thereby the success of alternate consumption and construction ventures.
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5 In your opinion, how could more collaborations or partnerships with other ecosystem players be built to inspire more impact focussed investments? What is the role that incubators and accelerators play towards forging such partnerships?
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With an entrepreneur first approach NSRCEL believes that academic interventions definitely upskill the entrepreneur, but the growth of a venture, especially post early stages need access to networks for expansion. These require deliberate strategic initiatives with a thought leadership approach that only a quasi-govt organisation & an incubator attached to a premier institution like IIM-B can bring in.
Some interventions in the recent past are.
- Signed up membership with Impact Investment Council
- Onboarded Yunus Business Fund as Funding Readiness Partner midway through the rural program. By the end of the program, 2 ventures were offered customized debt.
- Curated selection and nomination working with global accelerators like Miller Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, University of Santa Clara
- 3 NSRCEL start-ups winning awards at ICEF Event, 1 selected for GITEX Dubai
- Partnered with Start-up India Seed Fund and Nidhi SSS to provide support to 3 ventures
NSRCEL’s support to ventures goes beyond business mentoring and entrepreneur capacity building. The organisation provides sectoral connects, referrals to ecosystem stakeholder and funding opportunities to the ventures based on their stage and requirements to nurture their growth.
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