To further strengthen the number of women start-ups and entrepreneurs, which are on the rise in Kerala, KSUM has said it was aiming to secure more investor funding for thousands of others like them through various innovation programmes.

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Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM), in a report released by it on the occasion of International Women's Day, said that there has been a significant increase in the number of women start-ups and entrepreneurs in Kerala spurred by its various schemes and projects.

According to the report, the number of women start-ups under KSUM has gone up to 233 in the first three months of 2023 when compared to 175 during all the four quarters last year.
In order to further strengthen the presence of women in this sector, KSUM said it aims to secure funds for around 250 start-ups which are by women or would have an impact on them.

Besides that, funding would be provided to more than 1000 established women start-ups through various innovation programmes by 2030 and plans have been formulated to create women angel investors groups during this period, KSUM, the nodal agency of the Kerala government for entrepreneurship development and incubation activities in the state, said in a release.

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"Financial support of around Rs 1.73 crore was given to women/ women-co-founded start-ups in the last financial year and Rs one crore was disbursed as loan for women start-ups.

"Around 26 start-up founders participated in the management training programme exclusively conducted for women last year. About 95 per cent of start-up founders are professionals while five per cent of them are student founders," KSUM CEO Anoop Ambika is quoted as having said in the release.

Last year, women start-ups secured Rs 8 crore as funds through various innovation programmes, it said.

The funding support included Productisation Grant of upto Rs 12 lakh, Scaleup Grant of Rs 20 lakh, soft loans with a moratorium period of two years and technology transfer support with a ceiling of Rs 10 lakh, the release said.

To promote women entrepreneurs, KSUM conducts several programmes, holds incubation cohorts, boot camps and workshops and also provides business and funding support schemes.

KSUM's 'Women In Entrepreneurship' programme aims at fostering and promoting women through technical, ?nancial, business connect and by intervening policies for the enterprise to start, scale and accelerate in Kerala, it said.

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