Seed Support System – Technology Development Board (TDB)
Technology Development Board (TDB) is a proactive step taken by the government towards the promotion of providing soft financing to Indian companies enabling the commercialisation of their scientific and technological innovations. TDB is set up by the Ministry of Science and Technology and has provided financial assistance of a whopping ₹100 lakh each as a grant to 36 Technology Business Incubators (TBIs) and Science & Technology Entrepreneur Park (STEPs) established under the Seed Support System for Start-ups in Incubators in order to incubate innovative technological ideas and to lead them to successful commercialisation of those ideas. The assistance is positioned to create techno-entrepreneurs space around the nation and also act as a bridge between the development & commercialisation of the technologies. The objective of such a grant is to provide support for the start-ups primarily for product development, testing & trials, marketing feasibility, mentoring, professional consultancy, filing patents, manpower and other wings as may be important to carry out the commercialisation of that idea.
The financial assistance by TDB would also facilitate the STEPs/TBIs to build up an incubation fund out of the inflows over a period of 5 years. The inflow would be ploughed back to support the next round of start-ups. The assistance to the incubators can be either in the form of loans or equity.