Mumbai: National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom), the apex body of software sector companies in India, in association with ICICI Knowledge Park has set up an innovation fund.

The other main investors in this fund are Tata Consultancy Services and Bharti Airtel.

The fund, with an initial corpus of Rs100 crore investments from a maximum of 8-10 institutional investors, will be operational in three months.

The fund would provide seed capital to promote intellectual property-driven innovations in emerging technologies, Nasscom said in a statement.

Nasscom also announced a unique capacity building partnership programme with the Centre for the Promotion of Imports from Developing Countries (CBI), Netherlands for the latter's Export Development Programme. This programme is currently available exclusively for Nasscom member companies specifically in the small and medium segment (emerging companies) that are looking to work with European countries.

Currently, Nasscom and CBI are inviting applications for consultants, for a 'train the trainer programme' which is being planned as a precursor to the Export Development Programme. Once the applicants meet the perquisite requirements, they will undergo an intensive training module which will certify them as CBI Nasscom trainers, and they can in turn consult with Indian SME companies to help them become EU export ready.

Nasscom is working as a "Partner Business Support Organisations" to CBI, and helping to implement innovative export development services. Currently, both organisations are in the process of designing a framework for the export development programme, which will focus on the enhancements of exports to the EU by SME's in the services industry.

The two organisations would work as knowledge centres to fulfil the EU business outsourcing demands, said Kiran Karnik, president, Nasscom.