DBS Inks India Startup Partnership

DBS has established a partnership with tech business incubator Social Alpha to mentor enterprises that focus on socially impactful deliverables such as inclusion, healthcare or environmental solutions.

As part of the partnership, DBS will mentor and support three firms focused on the aforementioned areas over the next 18 months in addition to an annual grant of one crore rupee ($141,000).

The three firms include women-focused e-commerce firm Even Cargo; mental healthcare startup Trust Circle, which leverages mobile AI tech for emotional resilience; and affordable medical device startup Incredible Devices.

We have been working with social enterprises for several years. But our experience showed that some of these entrepreneurs could not scale their businesses or remained somewhat sub-optimal in their ability to grow, said Surojit Shome, CEO of DBS Bank India.

So, we want to encourage social entrepreneurs who are sustainable by generating enough returns to build scale, and we decided to look for a partnership with somebody who was working with scaled or scaleable social entrepreneurs.