
Transforming innovators growth platform: India’s path to escaping the middle-income trap
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The World Development Report 2024 by the World Bank highlights a critical issue: emerging economies like India risk being caught in the ‘middle-income trap’, where stagnant productivity and an inability to harness innovation hinder their transition to high-income status.
Despite boasting a thriving ecosystem of new-age technology companies (NATCs) across diverse sectors such as technology, renewable energy, and artificial intelligence, many face significant challenges in accessing domestic capital markets, which limits their potential to scale and compete globally. Reflecting on report's findings, reminds us of Sebi’s 2019 redesigning of institutional trading platform into the innovators growth platform (IGP).
The IGP supports new-age companies across high-growth sectors such as information technology, artificial intelligence, data analytics, biotechnology, or nanotechnology. With relaxed compliance norms, easier access to public capital, and streamlined listing requirements, IGP seeks to create an ecosystem that empowers these new-age companies to scale and compete globally.
This aligns with WDR’s advocacy for fostering innovation and reducing barriers to accessing capital. To support high-growth sector companies seeking capital, the IGP’s eligibility criteria mandated that qualified institutional buyers hold at least 25% of the pre-IPO equity shares.
This was aimed to provide credibility to the IGP-listed companies, which are open to investment by individuals with an annual income of ₹50 lakh income per annum or networth of ₹25 crore, as well as body corporates and family trust with networth of ₹25 crore. This structure is designed to give select investors—who understand the business
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