In his budget speech in 2002, the Finance Minister had announced his decision to establish a Micro Venture Innovation Fund. A national level MVIF of Rs 40 millions has been instituted for ten years with the help of SIDBI. The launch of MVIF was announced on the eve of Gandhi Jayanti by the National Innovation Foundation. It is obvious that it is a case of a support, too little, too late and will hardly make a small dent on the problem. However, it is hoped that the experience of incubation in the last so many years and as well as through this fund in coming years will convince the policy makers about the need for supporting small innovators in a major way.
Objectives of the MVIF: The broad purpose behind MVIF was to bridge the glaring gap in completing the Golden Triangle of Creativity by bringing in Investments to Innovations in order to create viable micro Enterprises at grassroots. However, specific objectives of MVIF are spelt as below;
- Provide a means of finance for innovation and traditional knowledge-based micro-ventures, which are generally not given any priority by other Venture Capital Funds and Financial Institutions (FIs).
- Provide a means of finance for managing the technology development life cycle which includes Prototype Development, Technical Validations & Benchmarking, Field Trials, Market Research, Certification by Regulatory Authorities, Protection of Intellectual Property, Promotions and Dissemination.
- Offer innovative and flexible Financing Options for the seed capital and working capital requirements. These could be tailor-made to the needs of grassroots’ entrepreneurs and enable them in minimizing the financial risk associated with their ventures.
The MVIF operates within the guidelines and the framework prepared by NIF under the guidance provided by governing board and incubation committee. However the delivery functions like project appraisal, disbursement, monitoring mentoring and recovery are being taken care by the regional arms of NIF e.g. Grassroots Innovation Augmentation Network (GIANs) and collaborators. (provide link to GIANs website)
Two important committees are constituted for proper implementation of MVIF. The first one, the Incubation Committee is an advisory body with high profile members having illustrative careers in the areas of Incubation and Management.
- Mr. Rahul Patwardhan (CEO, India Co), Chair
- Prof. Pankaj Chandra (Professor, IIM Ahmedabad)
- Prof. V R Gaekwad (Retired Professor, IIM Ahmedabad)
- Prof. P.K. Sinha (Professor, IIM Ahmedabad)
The second committee, the Fund Management Committee is an executive body which has following representation from SIDBI and NIF;
- Chief Innovation Officer, NIF, Chair
- Mr. A.C.Sahu, Deputy General Manager, SIDBI
- Prof. M S Sriram, Professor, IIM Ahmedabad
- National Coordinator- Business development (BD), NIF
- National Coordinator – Value Addition through R&D (VARD), NIF
The MVIF would invest in all domains and sectors, which are categorized as below in the NIF’s National Register of Grassroots Innovations;
- Agriculture
- Engineering
- Animal Science
- Forestry
- Transport
- Human Health Practices
- Energy Conservation/Generation
- Natural Resource Management
- Innovations from Artisans and Households
- Idea
Eligibility Criteria for MVIF Support: - Should be an ‘Accepted’ entry at NIF, which means it should be an unaided, Green, Grassroots’ technological innovation or a traditional knowledge practice from a person having non-professional background with established ownership of knowledge.
- And, the technology should be practically workable/demonstrable as per the original claims made by the innovator;
- And, should be a cost effective, overall efficient and effective (e.g. reduces drudgery) solution to any problem as compared to existing solutions/products
- Should have foreseeable market demand and good commercial potential;
- And, should have novelty either in Form, Function or Feature or all of the above, but may or may not be a patentable item;
- Having high social impact would be advantageous
- Special preference would be given to technologies originating from and/or for women, handicapped, other marginalized sections of our society
- Special preference would also be given to NIF awarded innovations.
Brief on MVIF projects undertaken under GIAN-W