STPI signs six MoUs to strengthen collaborative ecosystem for Indian startups

The Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) has signed six different memoranda of understandings (MoUs) with six organisations — Bank of Baroda, YES Bank, Mathworks, YourStory, Freshworks, and Pontaq — to promote the entrepreneurial ecosystem of startups in India.

STPI — an organisation under the Union Ministry of Information Technology and Electronics (MeitY) — has been engaged in the task of creating 28 centres of excellence (CoE) in emerging technologies.

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The MoUs are intended to promote entrepreneurship and create a nurturing ecosystem for STPI CoEs in areas, including digital and mobile payments, blockchain, IoT, Big Data, and other emerging technologies.

A statement from STPI said that to deliver an all-embracing service to the incubated startups, STPI/STPINEXT has been constantly exploring associations with various partners from industry, academia, financial institutions, advisory bodies, and experts to leverage their services, knowledge, and expertise for bringing comprehensiveness to the service portfolio of the CoEs.

Omkar Rai, DG, STPI and Chairman, STPINEXT, said, “It’s a momentous occasion that we are signing MoUs and forging a partnership with our esteemed partners, and this will further catalyse the startup momentum. STPI CoEs initiative is not an isolated one; it’s part of a larger startup programme that MeitY has envisioned to accelerate startup growth through MeitY Startup Hub (MSH).”

All the six entities that have signed the MoU with STPI will be making their contributions in their respective area of expertise.

While Mathworks will offer free access to its software tools and other promotional activities, YES Bank will provide expertise in areas like API integration.

Bank of Baroda will provide complete banking services to create awareness about the various schemes available for startups, while YourStory is the leading digital content platform devoted to the Indian startup ecosystem.

Pontaq — a cross border innovation fund investing in early-stage technology businesses across UK and India — have been identified as the fund manager for managing the total corpus of Rs 120 crore under NGIS.

The initial fund of Rs 60 crore of STPI/STPINEXT will be invested into 300 select startups, and Pontaq will raise the matching corpus of Rs 60 crore, which will be invested as follow-on investment into startups, which successfully demonstrate possibilities of commercial success with a market-ready product, STPI said.

Devesh Tyagi, Senior Director, STPI, said, “STPI and STPINEXT are trying to create a startup ecosystem to address the problems of startups. We are attracting ideas, promoting innovation and research, and giving them a platform to translate their ideas into market-ready products. The concept of chief mentors, who are industry stalwarts and entrepreneurs, driving the success of startups differentiates us from other incubators."