Tag Archives: Funds

Mentoring Clinics from Mentor Edge, CIIE

Mentor Edge is an initiaitive from CIIE (Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entreprenuership), which was set-up in IIM Ahemdabad and is supported by Government of Gujarat and the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India.

Each participating city has a dedicated “City Coordinator”  to link Start-ups with a pre-selected groups of Mentors from a variety of domains and verticals.

So far, successful events have been conducted at Ahemdabad, Bangalore & Mumbai.  Upcoming events are listed below:

Earlier this month on May 15th, Aditi Gupta (in photo below) & Vineesh Kumar launched the Delhi Chapter by organizing a meeting of Mentors at IIT Delhi.

Mentors present included:

  • Amrish Sahgal [First Left in photo below]
  • Dr. CK Taneja
  • Kris Nair
  • Rahul Agarwal
  • Rahul Verghese
  • Ravi Kikan
  • Sanjay Gupta
  • Suhail Kassim [Centre in photo below]
  • Amarendra Srivastava
Mentor Edge Meeting at Delhi
Mentor Edge Meeting at Delhi

We had a good discussion on the ‘screening’ process for entrepreneurs: basic policy is “no rejections” but due diligence is taken in terms of helping applicant entrepreneurs to be well-prepared.

There was a longer discussion on ‘criteria & process’  to ‘match’ entrepreneurs & mentors. Ravi Kikan with a ‘backing’ of about 50,000 members in his Linkedin Group ‘Startup Specialists’ was keen to make it more democratic for entrepreneurs. The debate was too long to reproduce here. Suffice it to say that this initiative is from Mentors to empower entrepreneurs and facilitate an access to world class mentoring, long-term partnerships and ‘timely’ funds.

Last Day for applying for Delhi Clinic is June 5 2010. Apply Here: http://mentoredge.com/mentee/for-mentees.

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ET: SMEs drive India’s growth to prosperity

Now that SMEs can raise funds through NSE/BSE, what more can be done to empower SMEs to drive India’s growth to prosperity?

According to ET Bureau, SEBI’s latest move “can be but one step
towards removing the panoply of constraints that they face on a daily basis.”

Some suggestions by ET Bureau:

  • Remove routine informational rigidities between SMEs and lenders and potential investors.
  • A more responsive policy mechanism to finance SMEs: what is necessary is an array of advisory and business development services focused on SMEs: the idea is to improve credit and business-performance information.
  • Innovative financial products to reduce credit risks for SMEs and boost investor comfort.
  • Address the problem of delayed payments and rationalise the tax regime for SMEs.

Finally we  enthusiastically agree with the assertion:

We need a thriving SME sector to boost entrepreneurship and risk-taking pan-India, and spur innovation and growth.

Read the full article here.