State Bank of India opens third specialised Startup branch in Gurugram

State Bank of India (SBI) on Thursday inaugurated its third specialised branch for startups at Gurugram to provide all banking services required by them under one roof.

Gurugram houses the third highest number of unicorns in the nation after Bengaluru and Mumbai, SBI said in a statement.

Speaking on the occasion, SBI Chairman Dinesh Khara said the primary aim of this branch is to provide end-to-end support to startups at every stage of their journey, starting from the formation of the entity till their IPOs and FPOs.

Apart from regular banking services to startups, the branch will also act as a one stop shop in providing investment banking, treasury/forex, advisory and other ancillary financial services through the bank's subsidiaries, it said.

Besides startups, the bank also intends to cater to the requirements of private equity (PE), venture capital (VC) and Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs).

Leveraging its locational advantage, the startup branch in Gurugram has entered into MoUs with Foundation for Innovation and Technology Transfer (FITT) at IIT-Delhi, Pusa - Krishi (ICAR-IARI), Technology Incubation and Entrepreneurship Development Society (TIEDS) at IIT-Roorkee, and MeitY Startup Hub under the aegis of Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.

It will enable the branch to reach out to recognised startups with the objective of assisting them in navigating the various financial aspects of the venture, it said.