Friday, February 19, 2016

Smart Nation revs up startup ecosystem

ENTREPRENEURSHIP has officially "gone mainstream" in 2015, amid a significant volume of new venture capital, accelerator programmes and series funding for startups.
This vogue, observers tell The Business Times, is largely a result of Smart Nation - a nationwide initiative and an all-are-welcome rallying call for startups, researchers, government agencies and even corporates to huddle and co-create tech-powered innovations for improved urban living.
"The pivotal moment for me was seeing the prime minister endorse what so many people have been doing to build a startup ecosystem here," said Hugh Mason, chief executive of startup accelerator JFDI.
 

He was referring, of course, to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's hosting of over 200 global founders, investors and corporate bigwigs at the launch of Founders Forum Smart Nation in April at the Istana. At the grandiose event (complete with a live dessert art demonstration by a local celebrity chef), Mr Lee had called on guests to join Singapore in discussions on Smart Nation challenges such as mobility and an ageing population.

Mr Mason said: "Smart Nation is much, much bigger than any of our largest enterprises. While the government can be an enabler, it's going to take the private sector working more closely together to find solutions to demographic and environmental challenges in all developed countries."

Making this work, however, will not be a walk in the park, he said, as Singapore has to identify not only a common approach to innovation that connects everyone's agendas, but also appropriate new legal frameworks and ways to harmonise the cultures of all participating organisations.

"We have begun something that I think could be very interesting," said Mr Mason. "So my prediction for 2016 is that of Singapore leading Asia in finding new methods to join the different elements of innovation in a way that could be very exciting and genuinely unique in Asia, if not the world."

Singapore has also deepened efforts to groom homegrown entrepreneurial talent this year, with local universities progressively "teaching entrepreneurship" and offering startup exchange programmes - formalising a new career path for graduates, said angel investor Leslie Loh.

To boot, IIPL (Infocomm Investments, the venture arm of the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore) has rolled out a venture capital management associate programme to nurture talents "upstream of the ecosystem chain", in what is believed to be the region's first such talent development scheme.
But while savvy investors will add value to the ecosystem, software engineers and programmers are equally critical as they are scarce, said Isaac Tay, co-founder of on-demand grocery delivery service Honestbee. "I believe that the startup scene here can be better if more Singaporean engineers who are currently working in US-based startups, especially in San Francisco, return to work in startups here for the Asian market."

Honestbee, which in October bagged US$15 million in Series A funding, is one of over 300 Singapore startups that set out to raise funds in 2015 - making the year "stronger than ever" for entrepreneurship, said Vinnie Lauria, founding partner of venture capital firm Golden Gate Ventures. The best of these startups have gone as far as to "disrupt" traditional industries, even prompting incumbents to do better, he added.

NTUC FairPrice, for instance, has recently partnered Honestbee for the latter's grocery concierge service, in which an Honestbee personal shopper will pick out FairPrice items and deliver them to the Honestbee customer within an hour. Said NTUC FairPrice chief executive Seah Kian Peng: "We have been investing and will continue to invest more in the online channel as we expect this form of retailing to continue to gain traction and favour with customers young and old."

Online furniture stall HipVan, as well, is disrupting the IKEA model by delivering cheap designer furniture straight to one's home and doling out home decor inspiration. Interestingly, IKEA is now in business with delivery van startup GoGoVan to offer same-day delivery of its furniture.

Likewise, ride-booking app GrabTaxi (fresh from announcing an alliance with global players Didi Kuaidi, Ola and Lyft to take on Uber) continues to disrupt the taxi industry. Singapore's largest taxi operator Comfort has rolled out a vastly improved taxi-booking app, and is now partners with third-party ride-booking app Karhoo, which will launch here next year.

In truth, not all incumbents have been slow to innovate, said Wong Poh Kam, director of NUS Entrepreneurship Centre. "A large incumbent in a traditional industry that seems to have responded faster is SingPost, which has tied up with Alibaba to ride the growth of e-commerce delivery."
In May, the postal services firm became the first logistics partner of Alibaba's Merchant Delivery Scheme. In October, it announced that its Singapore Post Centre will be redeveloped into the first retail mall here that offers both brick-and-mortar shops and online shopping under one roof.

Corporate innovation has certainly caught on this year, JFDI's Mr Mason said, as more companies set aside funds for extracurricular innovation or investment in startups. Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) launched an accelerator programme to groom media startups. NUS Enterprise, with healthcare think-tank ACCESS Health International, partnered to develop businesses for ageing. Most recently, IIPL and Cisco teamed up to help corporates and startups jointly develop applications for Smart Nation.

Lim Chu Chong, head of SME banking at DBS, said corporates "have much to learn from startups" as they encourage staff to embrace the digital mindset. The bank conducted a total of 15 hackathons this year, resulting in 1,000 experiments involving founders and 250 senior bank staff. DBS also recently announced a S$10 million investment in programmes targeted at Singapore fintech startups.

Said Mr Lim: "We see ourselves as their long-term business partner. In order for the entrepreneurial landscape in Singapore to thrive, we see large companies like DBS playing an important role, from providing financing to sharing knowledge, resources and connections."

With DBS's support, fintech looks set to dominate another year in entrepreneurship. Said JFDI's Mr Mason: "There are massive opportunities for Singapore fintech companies that think laterally about what they can do to leverage the good reputation of the Singapore brand for the hundreds of millions of South-east Asians who are only just beginning to engage with financial services."

The people that banks have "traditionally ignored", he said, will be a fantastic growth opportunity.

Friday, January 15, 2016

The Fourth Industrial Revolution: what it means, how to respond

We stand on the brink of a technological revolution that will fundamentally alter the way we live, work, and relate to one another. In its scale, scope, and complexity, the transformation will be unlike anything humankind has experienced before. We do not yet know just how it will unfold, but one thing is clear: the response to it must be integrated and comprehensive, involving all stakeholders of the global polity, from the public and private sectors to academia and civil society.

The First Industrial Revolution used water and steam power to mechanize production. The Second used electric power to create mass production. The Third used electronics and information technology to automate production. Now a Fourth Industrial Revolution is building on the Third, the digital revolution that has been occurring since the middle of the last century. It is characterized by a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres.
4th-industrial-revolution
There are three reasons why today’s transformations represent not merely a prolongation of the Third Industrial Revolution but rather the arrival of a Fourth and distinct one: velocity, scope, and systems impact. The speed of current breakthroughs has no historical precedent. When compared with previous industrial revolutions, the Fourth is evolving at an exponential rather than a linear pace. Moreover, it is disrupting almost every industry in every country. And the breadth and depth of these changes herald the transformation of entire systems of production, management, and governance.
The possibilities of billions of people connected by mobile devices, with unprecedented processing power, storage capacity, and access to knowledge, are unlimited. And these possibilities will be multiplied by emerging technology breakthroughs in fields such as artificial intelligence, robotics, the Internet of Things, autonomous vehicles, 3-D printing, nanotechnology, biotechnology, materials science, energy storage, and quantum computing.

Already, artificial intelligence is all around us, from self-driving cars and drones to virtual assistants and software that translate or invest. Impressive progress has been made in AI in recent years, driven by exponential increases in computing power and by the availability of vast amounts of data, from software used to discover new drugs to algorithms used to predict our cultural interests. Digital fabrication technologies, meanwhile, are interacting with the biological world on a daily basis. Engineers, designers, and architects are combining computational design, additive manufacturing, materials engineering, and synthetic biology to pioneer a symbiosis between microorganisms, our bodies, the products we consume, and even the buildings we inhabit.

Challenges and opportunities
Like the revolutions that preceded it, the Fourth Industrial Revolution has the potential to raise global income levels and improve the quality of life for populations around the world. To date, those who have gained the most from it have been consumers able to afford and access the digital world; technology has made possible new products and services that increase the efficiency and pleasure of our personal lives. Ordering a cab, booking a flight, buying a product, making a payment, listening to music, watching a film, or playing a game—any of these can now be done remotely.

In the future, technological innovation will also lead to a supply-side miracle, with long-term gains in efficiency and productivity. Transportation and communication costs will drop, logistics and global supply chains will become more effective, and the cost of trade will diminish, all of which will open new markets and drive economic growth.

At the same time, as the economists Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee have pointed out, the revolution could yield greater inequality, particularly in its potential to disrupt labor markets. As automation substitutes for labor across the entire economy, the net displacement of workers by machines might exacerbate the gap between returns to capital and returns to labor. On the other hand, it is also possible that the displacement of workers by technology will, in aggregate, result in a net increase in safe and rewarding jobs.

We cannot foresee at this point which scenario is likely to emerge, and history suggests that the outcome is likely to be some combination of the two. However, I am convinced of one thing—that in the future, talent, more than capital, will represent the critical factor of production. This will give rise to a job market increasingly segregated into “low-skill/low-pay” and “high-skill/high-pay” segments, which in turn will lead to an increase in social tensions.

In addition to being a key economic concern, inequality represents the greatest societal concern associated with the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The largest beneficiaries of innovation tend to be the providers of intellectual and physical capital—the innovators, shareholders, and investors—which explains the rising gap in wealth between those dependent on capital versus labor. Technology is therefore one of the main reasons why incomes have stagnated, or even decreased, for a majority of the population in high-income countries: the demand for highly skilled workers has increased while the demand for workers with less education and lower skills has decreased. The result is a job market with a strong demand at the high and low ends, but a hollowing out of the middle.

This helps explain why so many workers are disillusioned and fearful that their own real incomes and those of their children will continue to stagnate. It also helps explain why middle classes around the world are increasingly experiencing a pervasive sense of dissatisfaction and unfairness. A winner-takes-all economy that offers only limited access to the middle class is a recipe for democratic malaise and dereliction.

Discontent can also be fueled by the pervasiveness of digital technologies and the dynamics of information sharing typified by social media. More than 30 percent of the global population now uses social media platforms to connect, learn, and share information. In an ideal world, these interactions would provide an opportunity for cross-cultural understanding and cohesion. However, they can also create and propagate unrealistic expectations as to what constitutes success for an individual or a group, as well as offer opportunities for extreme ideas and ideologies to spread.

The impact on business
An underlying theme in my conversations with global CEOs and senior business executives is that the acceleration of innovation and the velocity of disruption are hard to comprehend or anticipate and that these drivers constitute a source of constant surprise, even for the best connected and most well informed. Indeed, across all industries, there is clear evidence that the technologies that underpin the Fourth Industrial Revolution are having a major impact on businesses.

On the supply side, many industries are seeing the introduction of new technologies that create entirely new ways of serving existing needs and significantly disrupt existing industry value chains. Disruption is also flowing from agile, innovative competitors who, thanks to access to global digital platforms for research, development, marketing, sales, and distribution, can oust well-established incumbents faster than ever by improving the quality, speed, or price at which value is delivered.

Major shifts on the demand side are also occurring, as growing transparency, consumer engagement, and new patterns of consumer behavior (increasingly built upon access to mobile networks and data) force companies to adapt the way they design, market, and deliver products and services.

A key trend is the development of technology-enabled platforms that combine both demand and supply to disrupt existing industry structures, such as those we see within the “sharing” or “on demand” economy. These technology platforms, rendered easy to use by the smartphone, convene people, assets, and data—thus creating entirely new ways of consuming goods and services in the process. In addition, they lower the barriers for businesses and individuals to create wealth, altering the personal and professional environments of workers. These new platform businesses are rapidly multiplying into many new services, ranging from laundry to shopping, from chores to parking, from massages to travel.

On the whole, there are four main effects that the Fourth Industrial Revolution has on business—on customer expectations, on product enhancement, on collaborative innovation, and on organizational forms. Whether consumers or businesses, customers are increasingly at the epicenter of the economy, which is all about improving how customers are served. Physical products and services, moreover, can now be enhanced with digital capabilities that increase their value. New technologies make assets more durable and resilient, while data and analytics are transforming how they are maintained. A world of customer experiences, data-based services, and asset performance through analytics, meanwhile, requires new forms of collaboration, particularly given the speed at which innovation and disruption are taking place. And the emergence of global platforms and other new business models, finally, means that talent, culture, and organizational forms will have to be rethought.

Overall, the inexorable shift from simple digitization (the Third Industrial Revolution) to innovation based on combinations of technologies (the Fourth Industrial Revolution) is forcing companies to reexamine the way they do business. The bottom line, however, is the same: business leaders and senior executives need to understand their changing environment, challenge the assumptions of their operating teams, and relentlessly and continuously innovate.

The impact on government
As the physical, digital, and biological worlds continue to converge, new technologies and platforms will increasingly enable citizens to engage with governments, voice their opinions, coordinate their efforts, and even circumvent the supervision of public authorities. Simultaneously, governments will gain new technological powers to increase their control over populations, based on pervasive surveillance systems and the ability to control digital infrastructure. On the whole, however, governments will increasingly face pressure to change their current approach to public engagement and policymaking, as their central role of conducting policy diminishes owing to new sources of competition and the redistribution and decentralization of power that new technologies make possible.

Ultimately, the ability of government systems and public authorities to adapt will determine their survival. If they prove capable of embracing a world of disruptive change, subjecting their structures to the levels of transparency and efficiency that will enable them to maintain their competitive edge, they will endure. If they cannot evolve, they will face increasing trouble.

This will be particularly true in the realm of regulation. Current systems of public policy and decision-making evolved alongside the Second Industrial Revolution, when decision-makers had time to study a specific issue and develop the necessary response or appropriate regulatory framework. The whole process was designed to be linear and mechanistic, following a strict “top down” approach.

But such an approach is no longer feasible. Given the Fourth Industrial Revolution’s rapid pace of change and broad impacts, legislators and regulators are being challenged to an unprecedented degree and for the most part are proving unable to cope.

How, then, can they preserve the interest of the consumers and the public at large while continuing to support innovation and technological development? By embracing “agile” governance, just as the private sector has increasingly adopted agile responses to software development and business operations more generally. This means regulators must continuously adapt to a new, fast-changing environment, reinventing themselves so they can truly understand what it is they are regulating. To do so, governments and regulatory agencies will need to collaborate closely with business and civil society.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution will also profoundly impact the nature of national and international security, affecting both the probability and the nature of conflict. The history of warfare and international security is the history of technological innovation, and today is no exception. Modern conflicts involving states are increasingly “hybrid” in nature, combining traditional battlefield techniques with elements previously associated with nonstate actors. The distinction between war and peace, combatant and noncombatant, and even violence and nonviolence (think cyberwarfare) is becoming uncomfortably blurry.

As this process takes place and new technologies such as autonomous or biological weapons become easier to use, individuals and small groups will increasingly join states in being capable of causing mass harm. This new vulnerability will lead to new fears. But at the same time, advances in technology will create the potential to reduce the scale or impact of violence, through the development of new modes of protection, for example, or greater precision in targeting.

The impact on people
The Fourth Industrial Revolution, finally, will change not only what we do but also who we are. It will affect our identity and all the issues associated with it: our sense of privacy, our notions of ownership, our consumption patterns, the time we devote to work and leisure, and how we develop our careers, cultivate our skills, meet people, and nurture relationships. It is already changing our health and leading to a “quantified” self, and sooner than we think it may lead to human augmentation. The list is endless because it is bound only by our imagination.

I am a great enthusiast and early adopter of technology, but sometimes I wonder whether the inexorable integration of technology in our lives could diminish some of our quintessential human capacities, such as compassion and cooperation. Our relationship with our smartphones is a case in point. Constant connection may deprive us of one of life’s most important assets: the time to pause, reflect, and engage in meaningful conversation.

One of the greatest individual challenges posed by new information technologies is privacy. We instinctively understand why it is so essential, yet the tracking and sharing of information about us is a crucial part of the new connectivity. Debates about fundamental issues such as the impact on our inner lives of the loss of control over our data will only intensify in the years ahead. Similarly, the revolutions occurring in biotechnology and AI, which are redefining what it means to be human by pushing back the current thresholds of life span, health, cognition, and capabilities, will compel us to redefine our moral and ethical boundaries.

Shaping the future
Neither technology nor the disruption that comes with it is an exogenous force over which humans have no control. All of us are responsible for guiding its evolution, in the decisions we make on a daily basis as citizens, consumers, and investors. We should thus grasp the opportunity and power we have to shape the Fourth Industrial Revolution and direct it toward a future that reflects our common objectives and values.

To do this, however, we must develop a comprehensive and globally shared view of how technology is affecting our lives and reshaping our economic, social, cultural, and human environments. There has never been a time of greater promise, or one of greater potential peril. Today’s decision-makers, however, are too often trapped in traditional, linear thinking, or too absorbed by the multiple crises demanding their attention, to think strategically about the forces of disruption and innovation shaping our future.

In the end, it all comes down to people and values. We need to shape a future that works for all of us by putting people first and empowering them. In its most pessimistic, dehumanized form, the Fourth Industrial Revolution may indeed have the potential to “robotize” humanity and thus to deprive us of our heart and soul. But as a complement to the best parts of human nature—creativity, empathy, stewardship—it can also lift humanity into a new collective and moral consciousness based on a shared sense of destiny. It is incumbent on us all to make sure the latter prevails

Lure back startups before losing them to Singapore


New-age startups are making waves. Flipkart has redefined retail. Ola is changing how we travel by taxis. PayTm is at the threshold of disrupting banks. Forus Health is attacking blindness with gusto. Eko is bringing financial inclusion to millions. Team Indus is on its way to land a rover on the moon. Nowfloats is bringing lakhs of businesses online. Pick any sector, even agriculture, and you’ll find a newage startup gamely trying to bring about change.

These new-age startups are not like our traditional small businesses. They are peculiar in many respects. For one, they don’t play safe. They take on incumbents that are many times their size. They seek out David versus Goliath battles. They have a ‘panga’ mindset where our traditional small businessman was all about ‘dhanda.’ This craziness in their DNA makes them wonderful change agents. No wonder, these new startups are transforming India from within. They are scalable and that too rapidly. They can attract lots of capital globally and that makes them disruptive.

startup
We are blessed to have these new-age startups. It turns out that this new species of small businesses thrives only in a few places in the world. The most famous locale is, of course, Silicon Valley. Europe, unfortunately, is a veritable desert. South America has only Chile as a small oasis. Asia, however, looks really promising. Israel became a startup hub first, then China and now India. We are now the third-largest startup ecosystem in the world and well on the way to becoming the second-largest.

But there is something dark about India’s startup boom. Six of the eight Unicorns have domiciled themselves outside India–in Singapore or US. In 2014, 54 per cent of all new-age startups raising money chose to domicile outside India. Last year this number grew. It is estimated to have crossed 75 per cent! This points to a big problem. India is driving away her best and brightest again!

You might wonder why it matters where Flipkart is domiciled. For starters, when Flipkart has its IPO, Indian citizens won’t get a chance to participate in it. Worse, the intellectual property of these redomiciled companies moves to their new home. But the worst is that the money that the founders and investors make at the time of an IPO or an M&A goes to their foreign bank accounts and tends to stay there. It stymies the creation of rupee risk-capital system in India. It makes are startups almost fully dependent on foreign capital leaving most of them starved and under-capitalized in their early years. It also inhibits Indian capital earning superior returns.

Startup India is an opportunity to stop the exodus. It turns out that only 34 issues, across Ministry of Finance, RBI, Ministry of Corporate Affairs and Ministry of Commerce, need to be tackled. Work has been underway on them since Oct 23 and 60 per cent of the issues seem to be on their way to a resolution. But this 60 per cent fix is a recipe for failure. Unless all the 34 items are resolved, the exodus will not abate. Just one friction point is enough to send the startup to Singapore, where, a welcome band awaits. Let us remember, over the next 10 years we expect 100,000 startups to come up, create $500 billion of value and employ 3.5 million people, the largest high-quality employment in any sector.

Anything that we do in Startup India without addressing the issues on the Stayin-India checklist is a gift to Singapore. The Modi government has made bold moves on the world stage. It’s now time to make one at home!

(Mohandas Pai was the CFO and then the head of HR at Infosys. He is now Chairman, Aarin Capital Partners. Sharad Sharma was the CEO of Yahoo India R&D. He is a co-founder of iSPIRT, a non-profit think tank that wants India to be a product nation.)

A neuroscientist says there’s a powerful benefit to exercise that is rarely discussed

When I was about to turn 40, I started working out regularly after years of inactivity. As I sweated my way through cardio, weights, and dance classes, I noticed that exercise wasn’t just changing my body. It was also profoundly transforming my brain—for the better.


The immediate effects of exercise on my mood and thought process proved to be a powerful motivational tool. And as a neuroscientist and workout devotee, I’ve come to believe that these neurological benefits could have profound implications for how we live, learn and age as a society.



Let’s start with one of the most practical immediate benefits of breaking a sweat: exercise combats stress. Exercise is a powerful way to combat feelings of stress because it causes immediate increases in levels of key neurotransmitters, including serotonin, noradrenalin, dopamine and endorphins, that are often depleted by anxiety and depression. That’s why going for a run or spending 30 minutes on the elliptical can boost our moods immediately—combatting the negative feelings we often associate with chronic stressors we deal with every day.

In my lab, we have also demonstrated that exercise improves our ability to shift and focus attention. Even casual exercisers will recognize this effect. It’s that heightened sense of focus that you feel right after you’ve gotten your blood flowing, whether it be a brisk walk with the dog or a full-on Crossfit workout. These findings suggest that if you have a big presentation or meeting where you need your focus and attention to be at its peak, you should get in a workout ahead of time to maximize those brain functions.



But my favorite neuroscience-based motivation for exercise relates to its effects on the hippocampus—a key brain structure that’s critical for long-term memory. We all have two hippocampi: one on the right side of the brain and the other on the left. The hippocampus is unique because it is one of only two brain areas where new brain cells continue to be generated throughout our lives, a process called adult hippocampal neurogenesis.



Studies in rodents demonstrated that increased levels of physical exercise can result in improved memory by enhancing both the birth rate and the survival of new hippocampal brain cells. Exercise encourages the long-term growth of hippocampal cells by immediately increasing levels of a key growth factor in the hippocampus called Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF. Now, when I exercise, I imagine BDNF levels surging in my hippocampi, encouraging all those new hippocampal cells to grow.



All this should serve as a powerful motivator for regular physical activity. But the immediate and long-term benefits of exercise on the brain have even bigger implications.

Just consider how the educational system might be altered if we acknowledge exercise’s ability to brighten our mood, decrease stress, and improve our attention span and memory. The growing evidence that exercise improves these key brain functions should encourage schools around the world to increase—not decrease—students’ physical activity. Not only would this help students to better absorb everything from history lessons to chemistry experiments, they’d be a lot happier too.



The positive brain-based effects of exercise for education are just as relevant for very young children. The growing popularity of outdoor preschools are a promising sign that this message is starting to get through.



These brain effects of exercise also have implications for our search for that magic “smart” pill we hope will make us more productive, successful, and—if you believe the Bradley Cooper film “Limitless”—a lot sexier as well. What if the real magic does not come in the form of a pill, but in the form of an exercise regime?



That’s exactly what the neuroscience research suggests. In fact, my lab is focusing on identifying how we can use exercise to optimize brain function for people of all ages, fitness levels and abilities. If regular exercise becomes routine for the vast majority of children and adults, we could have a population that’s not only healthier and less stressed, but also more productive.

The good news doesn’t end there. Recent findings have suggested that the brain’s hippocampus is also involved in giving people the ability to imagine new situations. Since we know that exercise enhances the birth of new hippocampal brain cells and can improve memory function, this discovery suggests that exercise might be able to improve the imaginative functions of the hippocampus as well.



This idea has not yet been tested in people. But the hypothesis raises the exciting possibility that exercise could make students more imaginative at school and adults more creative at work, with broad benefits for society as a whole.



It is also worth noting one of the most profound long-term benefits of exercise on the brain. That is, the longer and more regularly you exercise through your life, the lower your chances are of suffering from cognitive decline and dementia as you age. Part of this effect can be attributed to the build-up in the numbers of healthy young hippocampal cells as you exercise over the years.



Granted, this is a very long-term benefit that may not be seen for decades to come. But if more people were to join the gym this month and actually stick to it, more of us will be able to avoid debilitating cognitive decline, which could save society billions of dollars as we enter old age. This problem is even more relevant for countries with particularly large aging populations, including the US, Japan and Germany.



In these ways, neuroscience gives us a framework to understand exercise as a tool for better education, increased productivity in the workforce and combating cognitive decline. It’s time for us to stop using the looming prospect of beach season as the motivation for exercise—and instead shift the conversation to a discussion about how staying active can change the way we live.

Saturday, January 2, 2016

Government to introduce startup blueprint this month

The government, in two weeks, will unveil a blueprint for startups to ease the process of setting up new ventures.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will release the blueprint of ‘Start Up India’ programme which may include a Startups and Entrepreneurship Law to make it easier for setting up new ventures and closing unviable ones, besides clearing regulatory issues that hamper access to finance.
The government is also seeking to define a new category of business — ‘Innovative Start-ups’ — to distinguish them from micro, small, medium and large enterprises that are built on conventional business models. There would be a special support structure for such innovative start-ups, including funding from the government.

“In such start-ups, the government, through the domestic venture capital funds, could take a 25 per cent stake. We will leave the due diligence, mentoring and refining of business ideas to the professional venture capital (VC) and private equity (PE) funds,” a senior government official familiar with the policy formulation told The Hindu .

“As these start-ups gain in scale after two or three years, other investors, including PE and VC funds could buy back the government venture fund’s stake. This would help create a revolving fund to finance such ventures with transformative potential, as the government can deploy the proceeds from exiting these start-ups to fund other ideas,” the official said.

The Start Up India policy would attempt to address two key concerns the government wants to fix in India’s start-up ecosystem. Over 65 per cent of successful start-ups re-locate out of India owing to the difficulty of doing business, usually to Singapore. Secondly, 90 per cent of start-up funding presently comes from foreign VC and PE funds.

“There tends to be a bias among foreign funds for backing business models that have worked in the developed world or those that can be tried in India and replicated there. We feel that if Indian start-ups focus on the country’s unique problems, the models they build can be exported to the world,” the official said. The focus of the Start Up and Entrepreneurship Bill, that the government could announce on January 16, would be on making it easier to start, operate and close a business. The attempt would be to allow an unsuccessful venture to shut shop in a few days without risk to an entrepreneur’s personal property.

While these measures would facilitate general support for young entrepreneurs, there will be special incentives for the category of innovative start-ups that the government feels need additional support as the risks may be higher than a conventional business. At the same time, the returns from such ventures would be higher if the idea in question achieves its transformative potential.

Currently, the government-backed India Aspiration Fund, announced in the Union Budget with a first tranche of Rs.2,000 crore, acts as a fund that allocates money to different domestic venture funds which provides seed funds to innovators and entrepreneurs.

Nearly 90 per cent of the first tranche of funds have been allocated already, said another senior official, adding that another tranche would be considered once this is exhausted.

The government is trying to broad-base the methodology for identifying an ‘innovative startup.’ Officials are working out the modalities for this in the run-up to the policy and one of the options under consideration is to allow the heads of a government-backed incubator or technology development bodies in different sectors to certify or vet which start-ups are innovative.

The Prime Minister had announced the ‘Start Up India, Stand Up India’ initiative in his Independence Day address last year and is expected to announce the specifics of an action plan to back start-ups on January 16.