IIT Kanpur launches incubation fund

NEW DELHI: IIT Kanpur has launched INVENT — a fund that incubates startups in social ventures — in collaboration with Technology Development Board (TDB) and the Department for International Development (DFID), Government of the United Kingdom. The corpus of this fund is Rs 7.5 crore and it will incubate 40 social startups that operate for-profit in the social enterprise space.

This month, Innovative Ventures and Technologies for Development (INVENT) has made its third investment in a Lucknow-based startup, Decentrik Technologies, by funding Rs 50 lakh. Through the programme, IIT Kanpur's SIDBI Innovation and Incubation Centre (SIIC) aims to incubate startups with an upper limit of Rs 50 lakh on each investment, said its CEO, Abhijit Sathe.

In the past couple of months, IIT Kanpur had invested in two other startups — Promorph Solutions and Prosoc Innovators.

Decentrik Technologies is headed by Vineet Vats, and the company offers mobile water stations dispensing potable water.

"This is complete 'uberisation' of on-demand chilled, purified water available roadside at a nominal cost. We are currently in Lucknow and Varanasi," said Vats, adding that the company intends to expand beyond UP to Odisha, Bihar, Jharkhand, Mumbai and Delhi.