Bharti Airtel on Thursday launched an ?innovation fund? for telecommunication start-ups in the country, which is a first of its kind from any telecom company not only in the country but even globally. The initial corpus of the fund is Rs 200 crore and the fund isn?t a separate structure fund, meaning it?s not a venture capital fund.
The company plans to invest close to Rs 20 crore in each venture. Shaun Parmar, M&A director, Bharti Enterprises said, ?Bharti would provide seed stage funding to the companies without any management control and these companies would be managed and run independently?. Parmar said that Bharti will have no exclusive rights over any innovations. The company plans to fund innovations in the sphere of security, applications, and network (which includes telemetry and spectrum efficiency).
Monoj Kohli, CEO and joint managing director, Bharti Airtel said that the company has not yet identified any companies for investing. He said that the fund will be led and managed by Bharti though the company will not have any control over the funded company, it will provide help in the strategy if required.
Speaking on the company?s Sri Lanka rollout, Kohli said that the company will start its operations within the calendar year. According to media reports, Sri Lankan telecom service providers weren?t giving interconnectivity to Bharti for its network.
However, Kohli said that the discussions with various Lankan service providers and the regulator were on and the company was confident of matching the rollout deadline of this year. He also said that there shouldn?t be any fear of Bharti launching its services in Sri Lanka, as the operators there use a more sophisticated technology than their Indian counter parts.