The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) eased the eligibility and listing requirements for the Innovators Growth Platform (IGP), a separate exchange for new-age startups, on Thursday.

Currently, a company’s 25% pre-issue capital must be owned for at least two years by an institutional investor and other major investors before it can be listed on IGP. This requirement has been reduced to only one year by the Sebi.

Additionally, ‘accredited investors’—individuals with a net worth of Rs 5 crore—will be eligible to hold up to 25% of pre-issue shareholding for the above eligibility criteria. Previously, a limit of 10% of accredited investors’ pre-issue holdings was considered for the 25% pre-issue eligibility threshold.

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Companies with superior voting rights were also permitted to list on IGP by the Sebi. In addition, the open bid trigger for companies listed on this website has been reduced from 26% to 49%. Sebi has made it simple for companies to delist or move to the mainboard, which is either the NSE or the BSE.

IGP was launched in 2019 with the aim of offering a listing opportunity for technology-oriented startups or companies with early-stage investors with a far more comfortable framework than the mainboard. There are currently no listings on the web.

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The new Sebi relaxations, according to experts, may help the IGP platform take off.

“Several major improvements to the IGP platform have been proposed. This should make it easier for start-ups to collect funds,” said Rajesh Thakkar, partner and leader of BDO India’s Transaction Tax practise.

In the meantime, the Sebi board has tweaked the delisting rules. Promoters will have to reveal their plans to delist in the future. In addition, independent directors would be required to include a reasoned recommendation on the delisting request to the minority shareholders of a delisting-bound company. Sebi has also improved the efficiency of different timelines associated with delisting.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has also eased the rules on promoter shareholding reclassification. Promoters with less than 1% ownership and no “power” would not be expected to obtain shareholder approval until being reclassified as ordinary shareholders.In order to make the process more effective, the time between the board meeting and the shareholders meeting has been shortened.