{"id":53639,"date":"2025-08-08T04:07:16","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T04:07:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/53639\/"},"modified":"2025-08-08T04:07:16","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T04:07:16","slug":"campus-incubators-hoping-for-the-next-million-dollar-startup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/53639\/","title":{"rendered":"Campus incubators hoping for the next million-dollar startup"},"content":{"rendered":"

In May, when Ather Energy<\/a> listed on the public markets there was an uncommon beneficiary in the form of IIT Madras<\/a>. The institute\u2019s incubation cell, which had backed the electric scooter maker way back in 2013 with an investment of Rs 29 lakh, received a windfall with its stake in the once campus startup rising more than a hundredfold to a valuation of Rs 50 crore.<\/p>\n

The premier college went on to sell a portion of its holding, liquidating 31,000 shares for Rs 1 crore to emerge as a role model for other campus incubation cells that are now eager to replicate IIT Madras\u2019s track record. The institute has incubated 477 startups so far, of which 103 have received follow-on funding from angel and venture funds.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile India\u2019s academic institutions have long been home to high-quality research, much of it historically lacked a path to commercialisation. This changed with IIT Madras incubation cell, and then other institutes followed suit,\u201d said Manu Iyer, a managing partner at early-stage fund Bluehill VC, which has backed student-led startups<\/a> like EV maker Pibeam Electric and Planys Technologies.<\/p>\n

Among the colleges deepening their footprints across India\u2019s burgeoning startup ecosystem are IIM Bangalore, IIM Ahmedabad and IIIT Hyderabad as they increasingly support student startups to raise venture funding and scale operations.<\/p>\n

IIM Bangalore* has a massive cohort of incubated ventures, with \u201c3,178 startups emerging from the institution,\u201d chief executive of its incubation centre, NS Raghavan Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning (NSRCEL) Anand Sri Ganesh told ET.<\/p>\n

IIIT Hyderabad has mentored over 400 startups, of which 50 have raised capital after incubation.<\/p>\n

\"ImageETtech
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And it\u2019s not just the metropolitan universities that are driving this entrepreneurial surge. Regional universities in tier-II and tier-III cities are also building their own ecosystems.<\/p>\n

Over 60 technology startups are under various stages of development at IIT Palakkad and more than 30% of these are robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) ventures.<\/p>\n

Around 22 ventures have enrolled at IIM Jammu Foundation for Entrepreneurship Innovation & Skill Development (IIMJ-FEISD) since its inception.<\/p>\n

To be sure, there is no one model of campus-backed entrepreneurship across India\u2019s technology and management institutes. These elite colleges offer support ranging from pre-incubation to running their own institution-backed venture funds.<\/p>\n

In January, IIT Bombay had announced a Rs 100 crore venture capital fund to support 1,000 startups.<\/p>\n

The move follows the success of companies that have emerged from the Powai campus like Gupshup \u2014 the first unicorn from an academic incubation ecosystem \u2014 as well as deep tech ventures like ideaForge, a drone manufacturing company that is now a publicly listed entity.<\/p>\n

ImmunoACT, which works on indigenous cancer therapies, and Atomberg are among other key ventures from IIT Bombay.<\/p>\n

Also Read: Professors turn founders amid the new deep tech gold rush; VCs take note<\/a><\/p>\n

In Ahmedabad, IIMA Ventures has supported over 2,200 startups through its accelerator programmes, \u201cwith its mentee startups raising over $1 billion in capital,\u201d according to Priyanka Chopra, CEO and managing partner.<\/p>\n

For instance, at IIT Madras where the incubation programme has produced two unicorns \u2014 Ather Energy and Uniphore \u2014 the focus is on initiatives like the \u201cNirmaan\u201d pre-incubation programme, the \u201cBootCamp\u201d accelerator, and the \u201cI-Summit\u201d incubation showcase.<\/p>\n

Richa Bajpai, founder and CEO of Campus Fund, which focuses on student entrepreneurship, said not all student ventures require or qualify for financial backing at that stage.<\/p>\n

\u201cVCs need an exponential curve in the growth of a business, which most incubated startups don\u2019t present at an idea stage,\u201d Bajpai said. \u201cNot every incubated startup will find VC backing because it is a mix of having a great market and great founders at an early stage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, campus incubators<\/a> have become a space for dealmaking for venture capitalists, especially at a time when deep tech and research-oriented ideas are finding takers.<\/p>\n

So much so, that venture investors once chary of travelling to Chennai are now flocking to the southern city that is emerging as a new hub for deep-tech funding, driven largely by the IIT Madras incubation ecosystem.<\/p>\n

Term sheets are being closed faster and family offices and high net-worth individuals (HNIs) are also stepping in at very early stages.<\/p>\n

Tamaswati Ghosh, CEO at IITMIC, attributes the cell\u2019s growth to the institute\u2019s expansive R&D infrastructure and dedicated Centres of Excellence.<\/p>\n

NSRCEL\u2019s Ganesh said heightened policy intervention by the central government and state startup missions has also given a fillip to incubators.<\/p>\n

A joint report by IIM Bangalore\u2019s NSRCEL and IIT Madras found that more than 1,100 active incubators are active across the Indian startup ecosystem. But only 10% of these incubators support 98% of campus-incubated startups.<\/p>\n

*Correction: This story has been updated to reflect the correct name of IIM Bangalore. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In May, when Ather Energy listed on the public markets there was an uncommon beneficiary in the form…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53640,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[36131,45,49,36132,48,137,36137,36133,36138,36134,36136,36135],"class_list":{"0":"post-53639","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entrepreneurship","8":"tag-ather-energy","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-campus-incubators","12":"tag-canada","13":"tag-entrepreneurship","14":"tag-iim-bengaluru-etc-incubators","15":"tag-iit-madras-incubator","16":"tag-nsrcels","17":"tag-student-led-startups","18":"tag-successful-startups-from-iit","19":"tag-venture-funding-in-india"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53639\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}