Start-ups and its financing have been an area of policy importance for the Government of India in recent years. The thrust of the government policy making can also be seen in the impact – India has emerged as one of the largest as well as fastest growing start-up ecosystems in the world. In this research and documentation project, it is proposed to trace the Start-up policy evolution and how it has emerged as one of the important pillars for the government. While Start-ups also remain as an area of interest for the various state governments, this documentation and research would largely focus on the “Start-up Program” of the Government of India. The research would be conducted mainly through a detailed analysis and study of various secondary sources, archives and policy documents pertaining to Start-up India. However, given the thrust for documenting the intellectual underpinnings behind this policy imperative, we would also be conducting telephonic interviews with key administrators and members of the government who were part of developing the Start-up Policy over the years. Furthermore, we would also be analysing the impact of the policy based on data obtained from various sources.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of Private Equity (PE) financing in the infrastructure and real estate sectors. In doing so, it analyzes the effects of such investments in the two sectors, evaluates the types of financing strategies, and explores the value created by such investments. Infrastructure and Real Estate have emerged as a significant asset class for PE investors. In the last three decades, PE firms have invested significant amounts of capital in infrastructure and real estate – sectors which did not feature in their radar until recently. Between 2000 and 2009, PE firms invested about USD 203 billion in infrastructure and similarly placed figures in real estate. Fundraising for infrastructure and real estate was about USD 98 billion and USD 151 billion in 2019, setting new records and reaching all-time highs. This book examines such PE investments – both at a global level and at an emerging economy level, to identify how PE firms have created an impact with their investments, to provide both ready capital and value-addition to sectors which seem to urgently need both. The book is being published by Springer.

Three critical aspects of venture capital investments are valuation, security selection, structuring, and exit. Valuing a new venture with limited information is always difficult. The process of valuing a venture and writing contracts between VC and Entrepreneur is an intensive process. Since India receives a significant pile of capital inflows, tax implications in VC investments need be considered. The VC hopes to design a contract that reflects the firm's true value, protect investments on the downside, and reflects all of this in the exit returns. It's fascinating to learn about start-up valuation and the signals that VCs consider before investing. The information asymmetry in venture capital investments has been extensively explored. Securities and the capital structure enable entrepreneurs and investors to optimise their incentives. Contracts, in particular, mitigate downside risk for investors. Given the tax implications, security selection and structuring is a critical component of venture capital investing. These risk mitigation strategies should reflect in the returns when they exit from the venture.

Many universities have a technology based incubator (TBI) or its variants such as innovation and technology centres, science and technology parks, and business accelerators. TBIs offer a link between: technology, know-how, entrepreneurial talent, and capital. They help nascent ventures with various support services, such as business services, networking, access to professional services & capital. In short, incubators enable nascent enterprises to overcome their liabilities of newness and smallness. The intent is to help the ventures by providing enabling linkages to help the new business survive, scale up and grow. These university-based incubators have now become a hub for new business ideas and several well-known firms have come out of such incubators. It has also been seen that there is no clear single path for success of a new venture. Every entrepreneur has access or utilizes a different set of resources which can lead to a successful idea. In this backdrop, incubators need to understand and back ideas which have a high chance of success. This should be done while optimization the use of incubator resources.

Organizations continuously focus on fostering radical innovation to gain a competitive advantage. Innovation theory shows that recombining the existing components yields most of the invention. The fourth industrial revolution provides numerous opportunities to manufacturing firms by integrating various digital technologies such as additive manufacturing, IoT, machine intelligence, virtual and augmented reality, and blockchain. Most of the studies illustrated the operational benefits of digital technologies. This proposed study focuses on how these technologies affect the firm's innovative capabilities using patent analytics.

Entrepreneurship helps women to realize their potential and fulfill their dreams by providing them earning opportunities, improving the standard of living of their family which ultimately has implications for society. Women entrepreneurs are increasingly contributing to the economic growth of the nation worldwide, still their representation in entrepreneurship is meagre in India. Government of India (GOI) has taken enormous efforts towards women empowerment and entrepreneurial development by introducing several schemes under the Ministry of Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs). Yet many such sponsored development activities have failed to reach all sections of women. While such schemes and support from institutions have given women much-needed economic empowerment, it is largely observed that women entrepreneurs have to confront several personal, familial, societal, and cultural obstacles. So, there is a constant need to investigate the reasons (drivers) for the under-representation of women in the entrepreneurship domain which is one of the objectives of our research and identify the factors that contribute to their business performance. This study also seeks to explore the work-life balance of women.