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Looks like <keyword id="44373" type="CITY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Aditya-Birla-Group">Aditya Birla group</keyword> is all set to tap the entrepreneurial ideas of its employees, which is why it has planned to roll out an intrapreneurship programme soon, which is called Innolabs. Under the programme, the company will allow its staff to take time off from work to pursue their entrepreneurial ambitions. 
 
In August last year, the group had also started Aditya Birla Bizlabs, which was its programme to collaborate with start-ups in the retail, financial services and telecom businesses. The group has a dominant presence in these sectors. Out of the 1,200 start-ups that applied for the programme, 20 were selected to "scale up". 
 "When we were doing all of this (Bizlabs) for startups outside, our employees joining us from IITs and IIMs started asking: what is there in it for us? So, we have started working on something for our employees called <keyword id="3249352" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="aditya-birla-innolabs">Aditya Birla Innolabs</keyword>," Umesh Adhikary, president, corporate strategy and business development, Aditya Birla Group told ET. 
 
"If your idea is great and we see conviction and passion in you, we are going to help you create a company of your own. At the same time, we are going to give you a six-month or one-year sabbatical where you are going to go, develop the product, create your own team... and in case you fail, you can come and join back," added Adhikary. 
 
"We are forging partnerships with Nasscom 10,000 startups, Microsoft Ventures, Techstars, 500 startups," said Adhikary, who added that the group would prefer to work with slightly older startups which are looking at geographic expansion. 
 
Similarly, RIL has set up GenNext Innovation Hub, which is a start-up accelerator programme running in partnership with Microsoft Ventures. 
 
"It's a healthy development," says Sharad Sharma, cofounder of iSPIRT, commenting on Birla's move. "It's a playbook that Indian conglomerates have companies from tech companies globally and it's a proven one," he adds. 
 
<a href="http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/photo/48558671.cms">Image source</a>

Aditya Birla Group would soon allow employees to take time off for pursuing their entrepreneurial ideas

<keyword id="6448574" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="n-r-narayana-murthy">N R Narayana Murthy</keyword>, the co-founder of software giant <keyword id="6354512" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Infosys">Infosys</keyword> who chairs a Sebi panel on alternate investment policy advisory, on Tuesday pitched for pension funds and banks to invest money in Indian startups. Speaking at the annual Tiecon event, Murthy said a bulk of the money which gets invested as risk capital in the upcoming companies is from abroad and there is a need for domestic money to play an important role in this. At the same event, Murthy's former colleague at Infosys T V <keyword id="6491998" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="mohandas-pai">Mohandas Pai</keyword>, who is now associated with Ispirit, an advocacy group for startups, said only a tenth of the USD 60 billion invested into Indian startups since 2014 has come from domestic investors. Pai warned that "we risk the prospect of turning into a digital colony" by 2025, seeking to draw parallels with imperialism.
 He said there will be 1 lakh startups in India with a collective valuation of over USD 500 billion by 2025. There will be at least 100 unicorns among them and over 65 of them will be majorly owned by foreign investors.
 "This is one of the most important issues that we have been discussing (at the Sebi panel). That is, what are the policy changes that are required to make sure that there is more of Indian and domestic money coming into the startup sector because today it is by and large from abroad," Murthy said.
 "To do that, pension funds must be allowed, corporations must be allowed, banks must be allowed," he added.
 Pai sounded more disappointed with Indian billionaires who are willing to invest in real estate and even bank deposits, but have a tendency to overlook the startup sector.
 In an apparent reference to the spate of frauds, Pai said the billionaires also tend to pass the risk on money invested to banks.
 He said the biggest letdown has been from financiers in Mumbai, and asked startup entrepreneurs to educate such professionals on the need of the hour. 
 Pai said why Indian pension funds or insurance companies cannot invest, questioning how companies in the same sector from abroad are coming in and taking interests here.
 Meanwhile, Murthy also clarified on a recent controversy over cutting short his speech at an event where he shared stage with American e-commerce giant Amazon's chief executive <keyword id="191583" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Jeff-Bezos">Jeff Bezos</keyword>. He said Bezos had come on time to the venue, but the "indisciplined" crowd at the venue in New Delhi mobbed the entry gates which resulted in the delayed start for the event.
 Bezos was very understanding and smiled at the act of cutting short the speech, Murthy said, adding that this is so because the visiting honcho is himself a disciplinarian. See also: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/news/with-kapil-wadhawans-arrest-the-family-is-now-accused-of-scams-worth-over-a-billion-dollars/articleshow/73713230.cms?src=hp_ts">With Kapil Wadhawan’s arrest, the family is now accused of scams worth over a billion dollars</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/budget/news/union-budget-2020-what-can-finance-minister-nirmala-sitharaman-do/articleshow/73691622.cms?src=hp_wh">Watch: India’s ‘make or break’ budget 2020⁠— once-in-a-career crisis offers Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman a fertile ground for creativity</a>

India's tech icon Narayana Murthy says India may become a 'digital colony' if startups have to rely on foreign funds

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (<keyword id="35210" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="80" keywordseo="sebi">Sebi</keyword>) should encourage startups as they have raised over Rs 50,900 crore in venture funding since 2012, while mature companies have raised only Rs 13,462 crore through initial public offerings (IPOs) in the same period, reported the Economic Times. Indian stock markets are not the first destination for most of these startups when they want to list. Most of them prefer to list abroad — London's Alternative Investment Market (AIM), New York's <keyword id="6357328" type="COMPANY" weightage="80" keywordseo="NASDAQ">Nasdaq</keyword>, and Singapore's SSX, which attract new age internet companies like magnets. 

	Recently, Sebi chairman UK Sinha spent several weeks meeting entrepreneurs before the regulator came up with a new set of relaxed norms for startups to list on a proposed Institutional Trading Platform (ITP). This, Sebi hopes, will help India compete better with global markets.
 But startup founders and investors have different opinion about it. "ITP is a good step," Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder, <keyword id="6357120" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="PayTM">Paytm</keyword>, told ET. 

	Paytm is a mobile wallet-cum-commerce startup. 
 

	"But the Indian environment (read investors) chases only profitable growth. Internet companies are in the early growth phase. Their businesses are disruptive — like changing user buying and selling behaviour. They need to be looked at with different mindsets," he said.
 According to Indian Software Product Industry Roundtable (iSPIRIT), India has 3,100 startups. iSPIRIT is a group of software product companies, which interacted with the <keyword id="6378893" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="market-regulator">market regulator</keyword> to push for the new platform. This is set to multiply to more than 11,000 in just the next five years. <keyword id="6361649" type="CITY" weightage="80" keywordseo="Goldman-Sachs">Goldman Sachs</keyword> sees eCommerce accounting for 2.5% of the country's Gross Domestic Product by 2030, growing 15 times to touch $300 billion, from $20 billion at present. Yet the current listing norms are unattractive for startups to list in India. Global investors as diverse as New York based investment firm Tiger Global, China's Ant Financials, an arm of <keyword id="163405" type="CITY" weightage="80" keywordseo="Alibaba-Group">Alibaba Group</keyword> and Japan's <keyword id="280185" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Softbank-Corp">Softbank Corp</keyword> have been bank rolling startups here. This is great for the entrepreneurial ecosystem. But the cycle is complete only when startups list locally offering wealth creation opportunities to Indian investors. 
	 
	(Image: Indiatimes)

Startups aren’t convinced by SEBI’s listing guidelines. There’s something else they want

With Industry department drawing up a list of tax concessions on employee stock options, unlisted securities and convertible instruments, Prime Minister <keyword id="6354477" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Narendra-Modi">Narendra Modi</keyword>'s key <keyword id="3003094" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Startup-India">Startup India</keyword> programme may get a boost in the upcoming budget. 
 The idea comes because of the concerns that the startup movement in India was losing steam and there hasn't been a significant improvement in ease of doing business. The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (<keyword id="6391107" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="DIPP">DIPP</keyword>) has proposed that ESOPs for startups be taxed at the time of sale, when they have greater liquidity to pay taxes and the instruments get a fair valuation. 
 
Reportedly, DIPP also said that the period of long-term capital gains for unlisted securities be reduced from the current limit of 24 months, keeping in mind that investing in startups is risky and subject to a higher rate of tax. 
 
"We are trying to address various tax and regulatory issues which the startups are facing currently, hoping that the budget will address some of these issues," a senior government official told ET. 
 
Industry agrees with the need for incentives. "Startups move away from India because of the current tax regime. Some of these changes are simply hygiene factors and not concessions to help startups stay and flourish in India," Sharad Sharma, cofounder of think tank iSPIRIT, told ET. 
 
The long-pending demand of increasing the tax holiday period for startups to seven years from three years has also been forwarded to the finance ministry by DIPP. 
 
The tax holiday was announced to help startups meet cash constraints and limited avenues of finances available in their early days. 
 The Startup Action Plan announced by Prime Minister Modi in January 2016 said a credit guarantee mechanism through the <keyword id="3716592" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="national-credit-guarantee-trust-company">National Credit Guarantee Trust Company</keyword> or the <keyword id="104385" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Small-Industries-Development-Bank-of-India">Small Industries Development Bank of India</keyword> (Sidbi) would get funding of Rs 500 crore annually for the next four years. 
 The <keyword id="6360189" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Union-Budget">union budget</keyword> is expected to be announced on February 1.

You Searched For "iSPIRIT" and got 4 results

Aditya Birla Group would soon allow employees to take time off for pursuing their entrepreneurial ideas

BI India Bureau

India's tech icon Narayana Murthy says India may become a 'digital colony' if startups have to rely on foreign funds

PTI

Startups aren’t convinced by SEBI’s listing guidelines. There’s something else they want

BI India Bureau

Startups to get a boost in the upcoming budget, here’s how

BI India Bureau

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