... Eases start-up listing norms; bourses to create 'Innovators Growth Platform'

Mumbai: In a major push to kickstart listing of startups in India in a big way, markets regulator Sebi on Wednesday relaxed norms for new-age ventures in sectors like e-commerce, data analytics and biotechnology to raise funds and get their shares traded on stock exchanges.

Among the measures include renaming the 'Institutional Trading Platform' that the regulator had created for such listings as 'Innovators Growth Platform', the regulator said in a statement issued after the board meeting here.

The relaxation in the norms follows tepid market interest to the existing platform and demands from various stakeholders to make the norms easier and the platform more accessible in the wake of expanding activities in the Indian start-up space.

While there has been a growing interest among the start-ups to get listed, their intention has failed to convert into actual listing in a big way and many of them have cited difficulties in meeting the compliance requirements.

To review the start-up platform, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) had set up in June this year an expert group that included representatives from the the Indian Software Product Industry Round Table, the Indus Entrepreneurs, the Indian Private Equity and Venture Capital Association, law firms, merchant bankers and stock exchanges.

The group also held extensive consultations with other stakeholders including start-ups, investors, bankers and wealth management firms and subsequently submitted its report to Sebi, which later floated a public consultation paper on the proposed changes.

As per the proposals approved by Sebi's board, 25 per cent of pre-issue capital for at least two years should be with qualified institutional investors, a family trust with net worth of at least Rs 500 crore, well-regulated foreign investors and a new class of 'accredited investors'.

The 'accredited investors' can be an individual with a total gross income of Rs 50 lakh per annum and minimum liquid net worth of Rs 5 crore, or any body corporate with a net worth of Rs 25 crore, and they can hold up to 10 per cent stake before listing.

It has also agreed to do away with a cap of 25 per cent holding for any person, individually or collectively with persons acting in covert, in the company's post-issue capital. The cap is being removed to ensure that investors are able to invest more than 25 per cent in a start-up, thus providing the much-needed boost to such companies.

Besides, it cleared a proposal to reduce the minimum application size for share offers to Rs 2 lakh, from Rs 10 lakh earlier, to attract more investors to the new platform.

The board has also approved the proposal to drop a key provision that mandated 75 per cent of the net offer to be allocated to institutional investors and the remaining 25 per cent to non-institutional investors. It has been now recommended that there should be no minimum reservation for any specific category of investors.

The requirement to limit allocation to a single institutional investor at 10 per cent is also dropped.

It also cleared the proposal to reduce the minimum number of allottees to 50, from 200 under the current regulations.

The minimum trading lot has been reduced from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 2 lakh to increase liquidity and make the platform more attractive.

The board also agreed on reducing the time period from three years to one year for the company listed on the start-up platform to the main board of the stock exchange, subject to compliance with the exchange requirements. The minimum offer size has been fixed at Rs 10 crore.