TiE launches Rs 10 cr angel fund

The Bhubaneswar chapter of TiE (the Indus Entrepreneurs), a non-profit global network of entrepreneurs and professionals established to foster entrepreneurship has launched an angel fund of Rs 10 crore.

Christened as 'Bhubaneswar Angles', the fund will provide seed capital to the start-ups in the state. As many as 28 members of the TiE Bhubaneswar have contributed voluntarily to the fund.

"Initially started with Rs 5 crores, the fund will go up to Rs 10 crore. The details of funding the start-ups is being worked out and each entrepreneur would be eligible to get between Rs 10 lakh and Rs 50 lakh depending on the viability of the project," said Rajib Sekhar Sahoo, President, TiE Bhubaneswar.

Chief secretary GC Pati unveiled the 'Bhubaneswar Angels' fund at the fourth annual day of the regional chapter on Tuesday.

Debasis Patnaik, vice president, TiE Bhubaneswar, said, the fund will be functional in 60 days. TiE Bhubaneswar has about 45 members.

For boosting the start-ups, the state government has already launched a venture capital fund namely "Odisha MSME Fund" with a corpus of Rs 100 crore. The fund, created in association with Ahmedabad based GVFL Advisory Services Pvt Ltd, is aimed at providing seed funding to start-ups and growth capital to existing units for scaling up operations.

The annual event of the industry body was also attended by Vishal Dev, Chairman-cum-Managing Director of Odisha Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation, Sanjiv Chopra, secretary, industries department, among others.