25 Fintech startups to start their pre-incubation journey at IIMB’s start-up hub NSRCEL

Bangalore: NSRCEL, the start-up hub at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB), today announced the list of 25 shortlisted fintech start-ups for a 15-month extensive program, which could see many of them receiving funding from the CSR fund of ICICI Securities, India’s leading financial services firm.

The selected ventures will undergo a three-month pre-incubation journey during which they will be engaged in various sessions, workshops, peer-to-peer learning activities while they receive regular one-on-one mentoring and advisory sessions. Networking events, connects with industry experts, mock-pitches and interaction with investors will be major highlights of the program.

Post this, the ventures will be given an opportunity to pitch for incubation and funding and the selected ventures will be taken forward for a further 12-month incubation journey.

The initiative was launched in association with ICICI Securities as part of its CSR activity in April 2020 and received over 240 applications from across the country. The selection panel comprising of Mr. Rajiv Sawhney, COO, NSRCEL, and Prof. Venkatesh Panchapagesan, Chairperson, NSRCEL at IIMB, evaluated all applicants and interviewed over 60 entrepreneurs, before handpicking the finalists.

The ventures selected are early-stage startups working in areas like trading, lending, payments, wealth advisory, insurance tech, accounting and financial management, billing software and auxiliary sector-logistics. The cohort covers the participants from nine cities across India including Bangalore, Pune, Mumbai, Gurgaon, Raipur, Noida, Udaipur, and Hyderabad.

ICICI Securities has undertaken to partner the initiative as it believes that fintech have immense potential in jobs creation and economic growth, something which is a need of the hour for India, which has a large population entering the workforce every year.