The Kerala Startup Mission has announced that it will extend all possible support to Angel Investors who are interested and willing to fund local start-ups, based in Kerala. This was one of the many decisions taken as a part of a meeting between government officials, policy makers, venture capitalists and institutional investors, held on the sidelines of the ‘Seeding Kerala’ event which concluded today (January 29).
The two-day Seeding Kerala event was organized by the Kerala Startup Mission, with support from Lets Venture and Konglo Ventures.
“Based on our interaction with Venture Capitalists, Institutional investors and HNIs, we have decided to give all possible support to Angel Investors which would make it feasible for them to fund local start-ups. Kerala Startup Mission would give them the office space as well as other required support. The Government would also explore the option of participating in well-known angel funds that are willing to fund start-ups in Kerala. The Government would also come out with a framework for funding of start-ups as part of the Startup Policy which will be announced within a few months along with the new IT Policy. All these initiatives would give a big boost to the startup ecosystem in the State.” said M Sivasankar IAS, IT Secretary, Government of Kerala while briefing the press.
Dr.Jayasankar Prasad, CEO of Kerala Startup Mission said that, “The main objective of this event was getting all the stakeholders across, in terms of funding – investment community, the start-ups and the potential investors. The sessions, especially the training sessions went off very well, it was more of a workshop training for the start-ups. The successful start-ups too shared their experiences and this I am sure would have been a good learning experience.”
Summing up the event, he added, “Government has to support start-ups but not necessarily spoon-feed them. We are going to give them the potential for revenue. We would also create more touch points for investors to meet start-ups. We need to create more serious start-ups and have visibility for them. Seeding Kerala will be an annual event but we will have smaller events maybe on a quarterly basis where we will try and bring the investor community. We will tie-up with Lets Venture to create a platform to meet up with all the investors. We will also organise Startup Clinics where mentors would closely monitor the start-ups and give a course correction if necessary.”
There are about 300 startups in the ecosystem here, 80 start-ups directly under Kerala Startup Mission in Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi and Kozhikode and the remaining in colleges across Kerala.
