Gujarat University and Claris Capital have joined hands to collaborate in the areas of start-ups, entrepreneurship, innovation and academic research. A memorandum of understanding was signed on Friday aiming to strengthen the start-ups, research and innovation ecosystem of Gujarat.

As part of the association, Gujarat University and Claris will work together and share technical know-how, expertise, knowledge, resources and infrastructure for entrepreneurship development. It will also work towards providing start-up support, innovation management, and academic-industry-research inter linkages.

The MoU will facilitate start-ups directly supported by Gujarat University to have a direct access to relevant funding opportunities from Claris Capital.

As per the agreement, ‘.INC Idea to Incorporation’ - a youth entrepreneurship development conference, along with a large-scale business idea competition will be planned.

"Gujarat University’s GUSEC supports over 45 start-ups currently. Having been a pioneer of leveraging CSR-funding through Gujarat CSR Authority for start-up funding, associating with industry giants such as Claris is only a natural next step for Gujarat University’s efforts towards supporting young start-ups," Dr Himanshu Pandya, Vice-Chancellor of Gujarat University, said on the occasion, adding that the university plans to support at least 100 quality youth-run startups going forward.

As a part of GUSEC, GU has provisioned a 100-seater co-working space for start-ups in the university campus. GUSEC has funded 37 start-ups with pre-seed funds sourced through Gujarat CSR Authority. Over 20 ideas have been commercialised at GUSEC, and currently 18 product-based start-ups are incubated with the start-up support system.