Innovators Growth Platform

A For Profit Social Enterprise that wants to raise equity does not get a special, separate exchange just for social businesses. It lists on one of the same boards a conventional company would use — and the Innovators Growth Platform (IGP) is one of the three options the workbook names.

The workbook's own words, describing how a For Profit Enterprise may raise funds: "issuance of equity shares on the main board, SME platform or Innovators Growth Platform." What makes the listing distinctive for a social enterprise is not the board itself, but what sits on top of it — the securities are listed and traded under the applicable segment "with an identifier stating that the scrip is that of a For Profit Social Enterprise."

The workbook sets out three routes for an FPE's equity listing, against a single route for debt:

The choice among the three equity boards is not left open-ended — the workbook is explicit that "such For Profit Enterprises shall meet the eligibility criteria for the main board, SME Platform or Innovators Growth Platform (IGP), as applicable." A company qualifies for IGP the same way any other IGP-eligible issuer would; social-enterprise status does not create a separate, easier eligibility gate — it adds obligations on top of whichever board's ordinary criteria the company already meets.

What listing on IGP does not remove. Whichever board an FPE lists equity on, it must still show its track record through social performance of past projects and through the "differentiators" SEBI requires in the offer document — vision, target segment, strategy, governance, management, operations, finance, compliance, credibility, social impact and risks. Listing on IGP, specifically, is one of the segment choices referenced when the offer document's disclosure requirements are being fixed: "the segment of listing shall also need to be considered, i.e., Startup/IGP, SME or main boards."

Meridian AgriTech Ltd is a young, fast-growing technology company that sells low-cost soil-sensor kits to smallholder farmers. Before it can list anywhere as a For Profit Social Enterprise, it has to clear the workbook's predominance test (Chapter 3, 3.1.1(c)): at least 67% of its immediately preceding 3-year average revenue, expenditure, or customer base must come from its eligible activity to the target population.

On illustrative figures: Meridian's last three years averaged Rs 30 crore of annual revenue. Of that, Rs 21 crore — 70% of the total — came from selling sensor kits to smallholder farmers, the target population its Social Enterprise status depends on. Seventy percent clears the workbook's 67% bar, so Meridian qualifies as an FPSE on the revenue limb alone (it does not also need to clear the expenditure or customer-base limbs, since the test is satisfied by any one of the three).

Meridian is too small and too early-stage to meet the main board's listing requirements, and its business does not fit the profile the SME platform is built for. Its growth-stage, innovation-driven profile instead matches the Innovators Growth Platform — so, once it also clears IGP's own (ICDR) eligibility criteria, it pursues an IGP listing for its equity, not the main board or SME platform.

Because it is an FPSE, two things follow on top of the ordinary IGP listing process: its scrip, once listed, carries an identifier marking it as a For Profit Social Enterprise; and its offer document must additionally disclose the SEBI-mandated differentiators — its vision, target segment, governance and social impact track record — alongside whatever disclosures IGP's own eligibility criteria already require of any issuer on that platform.

Had Meridian instead wanted to raise only debt, IGP would not have been an option at all — the workbook restricts debt listings to the main board, regardless of how the FPE's profile might otherwise fit IGP.

Chapter 2 (Social Stock Exchange: Introduction, Funding Structures and Instruments), section 2.3.2 (Funding Structures for FPEs), names IGP as one of the equity listing segments; Chapter 3 (Registration and Listing on Social Stock Exchanges) and Chapter 9 (Disclosure Norms...) repeat it when covering segment-specific disclosure. Expect a question on which boards accept FPE equity (three: main board, SME, IGP) versus debt (main board only), and the fact that ordinary segment eligibility criteria still apply on top of social-enterprise status.

• IGP is an equity-only route for FPEs; debt lists on the main board only. A question offering IGP as a debt-listing venue is testing exactly this distinction.
• This workbook does not itself set out IGP's own eligibility criteria (promoter holding, investor thresholds and similar detail belong to the ICDR Regulations' own IGP chapter, taught elsewhere) — only that an FPE listing there must meet whatever those criteria are, "as applicable".
• Social-enterprise status adds disclosure obligations; it does not substitute for IGP's own listing eligibility. An FPE must clear the ordinary IGP bar and then also comply with the differentiators and social impact reporting.
• The FPSE identifier applies regardless of which of the three equity boards is chosen — main board, SME or IGP — not only to IGP listings.
• Do not confuse the Innovators Growth Platform with the Social Stock Exchange itself — the SSE is a separate segment for Zero Coupon Zero Principal instruments and NPO fundraising; IGP is one of the ordinary equity boards an FPE's shares can be listed on.