Partners
ISPIC 2021 Organizing Partner
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The Innovation Continuum
CIIE.CO is The Innovation Continuum. This continuum spreads across incubation, acceleration, seed and growth funding, and research. Founded at IIM Ahmedabad in 2002, as an academic centre, CIIE.CO has grown and pivoted to include acceleration, incubation, investment, research and publication. Overall, we have aimed at filling the multiple, ever-evolving gaps in the Indian innovation-driven entrepreneurship space in many ways. Among various initiatives, CIIE.CO has conceptualised and hosted India’s first accelerator, created India’s first and so far the only cleantech-focused fund, accelerated over 1000 entrepreneurs, invested in over 160 startups, inspired over a million with their publications, including Stay Hungry Stay Foolish.
All the initiatives on the innovation continuum are aimed at supporting fearless, innovation-driven entrepreneurs. Working with like-minded partners like corporates, government agencies, investors and academia, helps us push harder towards co-creating exponential change.
ISPIC 2021 Supporting Partners
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Atal Incubation Centre – Centre for Cellular & Molecular Biology
Atal Incubation Centre-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (AIC-CCMB) is dedicated in contributing towards Atmanirbhar Bharat through its efforts to enable a new home-grown life-sciences enterprises. AIC-CCMB has successfully demonstrated that with the right infrastructure, support system and team, an incubation centre can play a pivotal role in helping startups to have stable foundations and grow into sustainable businesses. We are proud to be ranked #4 Top Biotech Incubators (2020) in India by BioSpectrum Magazine.
AIC-CCMB provides physical space for startups to work and creating a high impact ecosystem with policy makers, mentors, alumni, fund providers, experts, consultants and industry. It is one of the first center’s in India to promote cultured meat, mentoring and supporting innovators exploring alternative proteins.
AIC-CCMB was setup under the Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) of National Institution for Transforming India (NITI Aayog), Government of India, AIC-CCMB in August 2017.
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Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SINE)
Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SINE), is an umbrella organisation at IIT Bombay for fostering entrepreneurship and nurturing tech start-ups. It administers a business incubator which provides ‘Start to scale’ support for technology based entrepreneurship and facilitates the conversion of research activity into entrepreneurial ventures.
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IIT-Madras Bioincubator
IIT Madras Bioincubator (IITMBI) is one of the world class bioincubators housed in IITM Research Park, India’s first leading university-based innovation ecosystem. It excellently enables effective translation of lab-based discoveries to marketable products, nurturing innovation and bio-entrepreneurship & simultaneously promoting collaboration between the start-ups, industry, faculty and students of IITM. Since its inception in 2014, the services and research at IITMBI offer a comprehensive support for entrepreneurial leap from idea to market with a broad dual strategic goal– (a) providing infrastructure for technology scale-up & pilot-scale validation (b) offering a conducive research networking platform for industry-academia collaboration, with an integral outreach approach to identify & support early customers.
The state-of-the-art research facilities at IITMBI, with its 100+ equipment for wet lab facilities, has supported more than 20 deep bio-tech startups, out of which five companies have graduated to market. The bioincubator has facilitated 120+ job opportunities, 8+ commercialized products and 20+ IPs. The research activities and services at IITMBI, including its Early Translational Accelerator, offer a comprehensive support system to enable the entrepreneurial leap from idea to market, facilitate enhancement in technical skills and business mindset, provide infrastructure for technology scale-up and pilot-scale validation, provide a conducive networking platform for industry-academia collaboration, together with an outreach platform to identify early customers. The research infrastructure facilities span diverse biotechnological fields encompassing molecular biology, microbiology, downstream processing, analytics, cell culture, amongst other domains of biotechnology.
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Association of Biotechnology Led Enterprises (ABLE)
Association of Biotechnology Led Enterprises – ABLE is a not-for-profit pan-India forum that represents the Indian Biotechnology Sector since its formation in 2003. The primary focus of ABLE is to help accelerate the growth of the Biotechnology sector in India to attain 100 billion USD by 2025, through partnering with the Central and State Governments in their biotechnology initiatives to deliver optimal policies and create a positive regulatory environment, encouraging entrepreneurship and investment, providing a platform for domestic and overseas companies to explore collaboration and partnerships, forging stronger links between academia, industry by showcasing the strengths of the Indian biotech sector. ABLE has also started Mission 2020 to enable setting up of 2020 biotech startups by the year 2020 and also has Mentoring Cell for startups.
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Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC)
BIRAC is a Government of India Enterprise, not-for-profit, Section-8 company, set up in 2012 under Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science & Technology. BIRAC as an enabler aims to strengthen and empower the emerging Biotechnology ecosystem to undertake strategic translational research and development, and create innovative, globally competitive products/ technologies addressing unmet needs. It covers sectors including Healthcare, Medical Devices, Diagnostics, BioPharma, Industrial Biotechnology, Agritech, Waste to Value, Clean Energy including integration of AI, ML, BIG data and others related areas.
As an interface agency, it facilitates Biotechnology sector through nurturing a pipeline of entrepreneurs, Startups, capacity building through establishing bio-Incubation centre network, connecting Academia-Industry, Investors, Policy Level initiatives for Medium and Large scale industries.
BIRAC has so far nurtured 1500+ Entrepreneurs, Startups and SMEs and established a world class incubation facility network of 60 BioNEST incubators creating a specialized bio-incubation space of 6,40,340+ sq ft with high end infrastructure providing access to instrumentation, technical, IP, Legal and Business mentorship for Biotech Startups. This has helped innovators to create a pool of intellectual wealth (200+ IP filed) and market deployment of 150+ products and technologies across the country (www.biotech-solutions.com). BIRAC has created 4 Regional Centres (BRIC, BREC, BRBC, BRTC-E&NE) as extended arms to implement BIRAC’s mandate in the country. The ecosystem is now enriched with 4200+ Biotech Startups in the country.
BIRAC also integrates with National Missions (Make in India, Startup India, National Biopharma Mission, Ayushman Bharat), Policy initiatives, G2G and Multilateral collaborations for International Ecosystem Connect to scale the Biotechnology Innovation Ecosystem across India.
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Centre for Cellular and Molecular Platforms
The Centre for Cellular and Molecular Platforms (C-CAMP) is a Department of Biotechnology (DBT, Govt. Of India) initiative and a member of the Bangalore Life Science Cluster (BLiSC). Considered one of the most thriving hubs for technology-based innovation in India in the field of life sciences, C-CAMP has been an enabler of cutting-edge bio-science research and entrepreneurship since its inception. As a part of C-CAMP’s mandate of promoting entrepreneurship and innovation, C-CAMP has created and fostered an entrepreneur-friendly culture in and around the academic environment through its various activities, including facilitating the translation of early stage discoveries & ideas to commercially viable solutions.
C-CAMP has, in the last few years, nurtured and supported over 225 innovative start-ups in life sciences through early stage funding, incubation, mentorship and acceleration. C-CAMP’s entrepreneurial activities include providing high-end laboratory space and infrastructure through bio-incubation, early stage funding through its Investment Program, scientific and non-scientific/business mentorship through the Mentorship program and holding a series of critical networking events and workshops for C-CAMP Start-ups.
The ecosystem that C-CAMP has created has led to a significant number of these start-ups doing very well, demonstrated by the fact that many of these start-ups have been successful in raising follow on funding to the tune of over INR 1000 Cr. from the Government of India, private investors, global venture capital firms as well international organizations. Over 25 products have been commercialized by C-CAMP-supported startups.
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National Institute of Food Technology Entrepreneurship and Management (NIFTEM)
NIFTEM is the brainchild of the Ministry of Food Processing Industries (MoFPI)Government of India. MoFPI in its Vision document-2015, envisaged creation of a world-class institution to cater to the various stakeholders such as entrepreneurs, food processing industry, exporters, policy makers, government and existing institution.
NIFTEM will work actively for assisting in setting up food standards, businesses incubation and can also include knowledge sharing. It would also be an apex institution
National Institute of Food Technology Entrepreneurship and Management (NIFTEM) was conceptualized by Government of India on persistent demand of the food industry to have an apex body as a “One Stop Solution Provider” for the various problems of the sector. Ministry of Food Processing Industries, Government of India has set up this institute with an initial investment of Rs. 500 crore (US $100 million).
The institute is spread over an area of 100 acres. The institute intends to act as a centre of excellence and an apex world class centre of global standards in the area of food technology and management. It will cater to the needs of various stakeholders such as entrepreneurs, industries, exporters, policy makers, government and existing institutions. NIFTEM being an apex institution under Ministry of Food Processing Industries (MoFPI) have developed strong linkages with industries.
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Smart Protein Ecosystem Partners
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Blue Horizon
As a pure play global pioneer with privileged access in the Food 4.0 ecosystem, Blue Horizon has shaped the growth of the alternative proteins market. The company aims to transform the global food industry through impact capital and value creation, and invests across the lifecycles of companies that are mission aligned to replace animal proteins with healthy and sustainable alternative sources of protein. Blue Horizon was founded by Roger Lienhard in 2016 and is based in Zurich. To date, the company has raised over USD 650 million and invested in more than 50 companies in the alternative protein sector. Its business model offers an attractive opportunity to invest in the evolution of the global food ecosystem while contributing to a healthy and sustainable world.
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Axilor Labs
Axilor is one of India’s most active seed funds. It currently invests in startups in SMB Digitization, Commerce and Logistics, Enterprise and Consumer and Healthtech. It has a seed portfolio of 42+ startups like Enkash, Vyapar and UrbanPiper in SMB Digitization; BizzTM, Locofast, QuickShift and Reshamandi in Commerce and Logistics; Detect, DelighTree, Superbeings and Emitrr in Enterprise and PocketAces, Headfone and Loco in Consumer and Niramai, Medfin and 5CNetwork in Healthtech. Axilor also has the largest founder community of 350+ founders.
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Ankur Capital
Ankur Capital is an early-stage fund investing in tech breakthroughs and product innovations that help unlock opportunities for the next billion.
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Brinc
Brinc is a different breed of venture capital and accelerator firm. Core to our business is our belief that some of the world’s biggest challenges can be solved by entrepreneurs, who we like to call GAME CHANGERS. More game changers will make a positive impact on the world if they are given the right backing. And that’s what we’re here for. To support and mentor founders and their teams from across the world and provide investment to help them grow. Today, we believe that technology focused startups, with the right backing and support can fundamentally change how we move, what we eat, how we feel and where we live for the better.
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ProVeg Incubator
ProVeg Incubator is one of the world’s leading alt-protein accelerators, exclusively supporting disruptive companies that are transforming the global food system. Since its launch in 2018, the Berlin-based ProVeg Incubator has supported over 55 plant-based, fermentation, and cultured food startups from around the world. Collectively, those companies have raised more than €35 million and are selling products in over 15,000 stores. As part of the food awareness organisation, ProVeg International, the ProVeg Incubator is committed to the mission of reducing global animal consumption by 50% by the year 2040.
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Omnivore
Omnivore invests in Indian startups developing breakthrough technologies for food, agriculture, and the rural economy. Having launched its first venture fund in 2011, Omnivore pioneered AgriFood Tech investing in India. Omnivore portfolio companies are working to transform food systems across India, making agriculture more profitable, stable, and sustainable.
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DSG Consumer Partners
DSG Consumer Partners (DSGCP) is an early stage venture capital fund focused on investing exclusively in consumer brands and businesses in India and South East Asia. Since its inception in 2013, DSGCP has backed over 60 start-ups and helped build some of the leading insurgent brands including OYO Rooms (sold to Softbank), Zipdial (sold to Twitter), Redmart (sold to Lazada), Veeba, Epigamia , SaladStop!, Chope, Growthwell and Float Foods. DSGCP currently manages US$200 million of committed capital and has investment professionals and advisors in Mauritius, Singapore and Mumbai.
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THOUGHT FOR FOOD
The Thought For Food®? (TFF) Foundation is the world’s pioneer and leader in next-gen innovation and startup acceleration for food and agriculture. They work with more than 30,000 next-generation leaders from over 175 countries, empowering them to generate and scale breakthrough business ventures that build sustainable, inclusive, and resilient food systems. TFF’s comprehensive suite of next-gen innovation programs include the TFF Challenge, an annual collaborative innovation prize competition; the TFF Digital Labs™?, a digital startup accelerator and collaboration platform; the TFF Academy™?, an incubation program for world-class startups; and the TFF Summit™?, a flagship global event focused on bringing the voices of the next generation together with policy and business leaders to co-create solutions. TFF’s work is powered by a global operating structure that includes the TFF Core Team, 14 Regional Coordinators and 500 Ambassadors in more than 300 cities, as well as diverse partners such as Google, DSM, Cargill, Danone, and the Rockefeller Foundation. Thought For Food®? is a 501c3 non-profit entity. Find out more about Thought For Food at https://thoughtforfood.org/.
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Ahimsa VC
Ahimsa VC is an investment fund that invests in early-stage startups that are leveraging and inventing new technologies to build better alternatives to animal products in the food and materials sectors.
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Big Idea Ventures
Big Idea Ventures is a hybrid venture firm: Our first fund is the New Protein Fund, which has raised more than USD$50M to invest in the best companies in the plant-based foods and alternative protein ecosystem. We combine capital and partnership to support and grow the world’s most compelling plant based food companies and protein alternatives.
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Huddle
Huddle is a sector and stage-agnostic accelerator-fund, on a mission to support and propel ideas into venture-backable businesses. Our philosophy is to accelerate, co-build, and fund promising founders. Additionally, our focus is to back businesses that can prove unit economics over scale and are building for what we call New India.
Why Huddle?
We follow a pain-point driven methodology to provide contextual support. Acceleration is not a cookie-cutter model and one-size does not fit all. We believe in utilizing in-depth market research, expertise from relevant industry mentors, leverage our vast network of partners and non-fiscal resources to enable speed to scale.
Some of our portfolio includes: Bold Care, Hapramp, Wellversed, The New Shop, RACEnergy, Cellpropulsion, amongst others.
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Food Industry Capacity and Skill Initiative
Food Industry Capacity & Skill Initiative (FICSI)—widely known as Food Processing Sector Skill Council—is a Not-for-Profit Organization, registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860 and working under the aegis of Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship.
The organization is Promoted by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) with financial support by National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC). FICSI has been granted the status of Awarding Body by NCVET.
It creates Occupational Standards and Qualification Packs, Develops Training Materials and Tools, Conducts Train the Trainer Programs, Conducts Skill Gap Studies and Assess and Certify trainees on the curriculum aligned to National Skills Qualification Framework (NSQF).As a skill council, FICSI accredit potential training providers having training infrastructure as per the guidelines for dissemination of training on the Qualification Packs. FICSI is also engaged in various skill development initiatives of central/state Government & Ministers such as PMKVY, GKRA, DDUGKY, ASAP, NULM, PMFME, B.Voc either as a project implementation agency or as an assessment agency.
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