• IIMA Ventures and SAP have launched the North East Growth Lab (NEGL) to support over 90 startups and social enterprises across all 8 northeastern states over the next 3 years.
• NEGL offers catalytic capital, mentoring, and market access, aiming to create ₹100 crore in enterprise value and impact 5 lakh people, especially low- and middle-income groups.
• The program evolves from Assam Agribusiness Growth Lab and includes startups like Dream Hives, Greengen, and Pustikor Foods, promoting inclusive regional economic development.

IIMA Ventures, in collaboration with SAP, has initiated the North East Growth Lab (NEGL), a new platform to further enhance entrepreneurship and innovation in the eight northeastern states. The program will enhance the growth of more than 90 startups and social enterprises in the next three years, with the aim of promoting inclusive economic growth and business development in the region.

NEGL consolidates the previous Assam Agribusiness Growth Lab (AAGL), a World Bank-funded program managed by IIMA Ventures. While AAGL was specific to agribusiness in Assam, NEGL broadens its focus to cover businesses throughout Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura, and Sikkim.

The program will provide catalytic capital in the form of grants and optionally convertible debt combined with business training, tailored mentoring, and market access. In the next five years, North East Growth Lab plans to create Rs 100 crore worth of enterprise value and impact more than 500,000 people, with special emphasis on low- and middle-income groups. The program also plans to take ten high-potential start-ups to the stage of securing Series A funding.

Besides promoting individual businesses, NEGL will also serve as a platform for regional economic growth. It will operate an annual calendar of activities like outreach programmes, investor-oriented demo days, and bootcamps, both in the Northeast and in urban hubs. The programme is also likely to engage with instrumental government and financial institutions like NABARD, NEDFi, NEHHDC, NERAMAC, and the Ministry for Development of the North East Region (mDoNER).

Among the early-stage startups that are already being nurtured under NEGL are Dream Hives, which is building honey-derived mead products from the region; Chezfresco, a ready-to-eat B2B food company, Greengen, which has developed a biofertiliser for tea gardens, Fuloni, sustainable home gardening with plantable and biodegradable containers, and Pustikor Foods, which makes cookies using Assam's GI-tagged Joha rice.

NEGL brings together IIMA Ventures' expertise in business incubation and SAP's focus on facilitating innovation-driven growth. The platform will help drive long-term economic change in the Northeast by filling capital, capability, and connectivity gaps for nascent entrepreneurs.

Read More News :

Piyush Goyal Unveils Rs 3 Lakh Crore Boost for R&D, Jobs, and Startups

Plan B for Apple shift, Rs 20,000 Crore startup IPO boom, GenAI jolts IT giants