IIM Calcutta Innovation Park (IIMCIP), a not-for-profit company established under the aegis of IIM Calcutta to incubate start-ups, on Tuesday announced a ₹50 crore fund to finance start-ups working in the areas of clean technology and sustainability.

Ajay Jain, member of the board of governors of IIM Calcutta and chairman IIMCIP, said that the funds are intended to be deployed over the next 12-18 months.

“Our focus areas are clean energy, climate resilience, sustainable agriculture and waste to value models and we are going to do the full stack. We will work right from investing capital, giving guidance to mentoring the companies and helping them to accelerate. We will work with the Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs to give them lessons in corporate governance,” Jain said.

Jain said IIMCIP plans to become the first social unicorn in India. “We have taken a target that by 2047 we should have impacted 1 billion lives and think this carries much more value than the unicorns whose valuations could be $1 billion and above. We are expanding into eastern and north-eastern India,” he said.

“We have so far funded more than 130 start-ups, enabled over ₹2,000 crore in follow-on investments and built a portfolio valued at over ₹8,000 crore,” said Subhrangshu Sanyal, CEO, IIMCIP. He said that IIMCIP has already nurtured over 60 “Crorepati Didis” (women entrepreneurs with turnover of more than ₹1 crore) and supported over 450 women-led enterprises. Of the 130 start-ups incubated by IIMCIP, 30 are from Bengal.