Shillong: The North East Venture Fund (NEVF), which was set up in 2017 by the North Eastern Development Finance Corporation Limited (NEDFi) in association with the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (M-DoNER), has been supporting several startups in the region.
In Assam itself, NEVF has invested in 24 startups across sectors such as healthcare, biotech, food processing, agri-allied, handloom and handicrafts, and media and entertainment. The minimum investment has been Rs 25 lakh and the maximum is Rs. 4 crore. The total investment has been over RS 46 crore.
NEVF was established as a close-ended fund with a target corpus of Rs 100 crore. It has already received its targeted corpus with a contribution of Rs 30 crore from NEDFi, Rs 25 crore from Small Industries Development Bank of India and Rs. 45 crore from M-DoNER. However, the contribution of DoNER was given to NEDFi as an interest-free loan to be repayable in a lump sum at the end of 15 years.
The startups, supported by NEVF, have identified the unique business opportunities available in the region and have provided value-added solutions to the consumers through their products and services.
To augment entrepreneurship opportunities among marginalised sections, NEDFi has established its branch network across all the states of NER which reach out to their startups through their business meets wherein the details of venture funds are explained.
This has resulted in NEVF reaching and funding startups from Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Meghalaya.
A pipeline of proposals is at various stages of processing from Nagaland and Mizoram. Many of these startups are led by women co-founders.
FIRST Business Portal addressing the potential of business capability of North East Region.
