Tata to set funds aside to incubate new ideas

The Tata Group will set aside $500 million to incubate new businesses in areas such as clean technologies, renewable energy and defence.

The Rs 3.25 lakh crore company has incubated a lot of businesses since 1945

The Tata Group’s efforts to identify and incubate new businesses is in line with some of the world’s large corporations like Unilever and Samsung that continuously incubate new ideas with a potential to grow to a full-fledged business opportunity in future.

Tata Industries has invested Rs 1,500 crore to Rs 1,600 crore in various businesses.

The interest of the company is determined by the scale of benefit (in terms of sections and magnitude of human population they can impact), disruptiveness of the technology, innovativeness of the business model or approach, potential of the opportunity to become a large business and linkage with the operations of our current companies.

The company is not limited by geography and have investments in companies located in cities ranging from Kanpur to Boston to Zurich to Israel. Tata Industries will either pick up a stake or acquire a start-up business with a potential to grow. It would invite some other group companies to either invest or take up the business as an independent unit within that company. Tata Industries also has to option to exit the business by selling part of the business to either to a company within the group or to an outside party.