IIMB partners with Yunus Social Business Funds to support social businesses from rural India

Bengaluru, November 8, 2022: IIM Bangalore has partnered with social business financing organization Yunus Social Business Fund Bengaluru (YSBFB) to incubate social businesses from rural India and provide them exposure to different forms of funding. 

As per the officials from the premier business school, IIM Bangalore’s innovation and entrepreneurship cell, NSRCEL will be leading the incubation program and YSBFB will facilitate modules on investment readiness, working capital management, and help the participants with exposure to different forms of funding, including an opportunity for two ventures to raise debt from the fund.

Yunus Social Business Fund Bengaluru (YSBFB) is an impact fund providing patient debt capital and growth support to social businesses. Co-founded in 2017 by Suresh Krishna and Vinitha Reddy, YSBFB is the India fund for Yunus Social Business Funds, co-founded by Peace Nobel Laureate Prof. Yunus.

NSRCEL’s Impact Orbit Incubation Vertical has recently launched its first-ever Rural Entrepreneurship Incubation program. The program aims to identify, nurture and scale social innovations in rural India and through this programme NSRCEL will support nine early-stage startups in scaling their revenues through specialised businesses and investment-readiness training.

The goal of this incubation program is to support at least 25% of the cohort to double their revenue and to directly impact 500-700 livelihoods, and indirectly benefit 2500-3000 lives, IIMB officials said.

“The COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting digitization helped NSRCEL serve entrepreneurs from all over. We also started to see first-time founders moving to rural areas, noticing a local problem or a market opportunity, and innovating for the same. This incubation program is a result of unearthing such ventures with a focus on innovative route-to-market solutions & rural livelihood creation, especially employing local women, said Anand Sri Ganesh, COO, NSRCEL.

He added that IIM Bangalore is excited to work with an experienced partner like Yunus Social Business fund Bengaluru (YSBFB), which has worked with such ventures globally in other emerging markets like Kenya, Uganda, Colombia and Brazil. We look forward to having YSBFB team engage with our ventures during our November Bootcamp and ready them for future investments in the impact ecosystem.

Speaking on the occasion, Suresh K Krishna, CEO, YSBFB, said that YSBFB has always supported social businesses that intrinsically work with rural populations, creating decentralised livelihood opportunities or enabling access to essential products and services. “The Rural Entrepreneurship Program comes at an opportune time to build back a resilient India. YSBFB is thrilled to partner with NSRCEL, which has for the last many years promoted the entrepreneurship movement in India,” he said.

As per the YSBFB, the social businesses funded by it (by Nov, 2022) have impacted the lives of 2.4 million people and provided higher incomes to over 25,000 people.

The early-stage startups that have been selected for NSRCEL incubation programme include

1. Sahrudaya Foods: Sahrudaya aims to bring regional rural recipes which are tasty as well as healthy to your doorstep.
2. Resham Dor: Resham Dor's vision is to revive diminishing craft clusters across India and establish artisans as custodians of their craft.
3. Kulture Street: Aimed towards building a brand that provides skilled Indian artisans a larger market access (online/offline) and a community of loyal customers that love Indian handmade products, across the globe.
4. Kalapuri: Kalapuri embraces artisan communities by giving new opportunities, developing artisans into independent entrepreneurs, training and developing artisan communities and providing global market through Kalapuri platform.
5. IVillage Social Solutions: IVillage aims to address the problem of migration of workforce from rural to urban areas by training rural women to manufacture high quality hand-made products and machine-based stitching processes thus giving them an opportunity to be financially independent.
6. Indian Yards: Indian Yards up-skills women from the communities in the Nilgiris to become fine macrame artisans and subsequently enables them towards becoming an independent producer group.
7. ForSarees: ForSarees is a for-profit social enterprise working with rural artisans, with a vison to revive and popularize indigenous weaves.
8. Bastar se Bazar Tak: Based in Bastar, the organization is working towards improving the livelihoods of tribal farmers through non-timber forest produce.
9. Ayang: Ayang Trust's Livelihood program provides training and market access to farmers in the north-east to help increase productivity and income.

With programs specifically catering to entrepreneurs with profit ventures and social ventures, also student and women entrepreneurs, NSRCEL supports various players of the Inidia's startup ecosystem.