IIT-Madras Incubation Cell in IIT-Madras
India’s deep tech entrepreneurial ecosystem is growing with a single academic incubator now housing 500 deep tech start-ups with the combined valuation of its funded portfolio start-ups exceeding ₹50,000 crore.
IIT-Madras Incubation Cell (IITMIC) — the early backer behind deep tech successes such as Ather Energy, Uniphore, Agnikul Cosmos, and others — has reached the milestone of 500 incubated start-ups in its 12 years of its operation with a combined total valuation of the funded start-ups among these (based on last investment raised from VCs) at ₹53,000 crore ($6 billion). Industry experts peg this to be on par with portfolio of long-standing angel funds.
The deep tech-focused incubator’s start-ups count over 700 patents filed till date
“We have incubated 500 deep tech start-ups and have done so without diluting the quality. It is a result of the sheer number of applications we are seeing from of deep tech entrepreneurs across the country, both within the IIT ecosystem and externally,” Dr Tamaswati Ghosh, CEO, IITM Incubation Cell, told businessline. Almost 60 per cent of the start-ups incubated are from outside the IITs, she added.
Start-ups founded by IIT-M students, faculty, alumni and external entrepreneurs across domains such as manufacturing tech, robotics, space-tech, IoT, mobility, biotech, and more comprise the portfolio start-ups. Over 105 start-ups (~20 per cent) have raised pre-series/Series A+ investments. Around 40 per cent are revenue generating and clocked an aggregate revenue of ₹4,000 crore for FY24. Ather, Uniphore, Medibuddy, Hyperverge, Stellapps (MooPay), Planys, Agnikul, and Galaxeye are some notable names.
Dr Tamaswati Ghosh, CEO, IITM Incubation Cell
| Photo Credit: cueapi
IITMIC was launched in 2012-13 when there were just about a handful of academic start-up incubators in the country with IIT-Bombay’s Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SINE) being a notable one. SINE, launched in the early 2000s, also houses over 500 start-ups.
IITMIC is among the handful of academic incubators with exits. While it has fully exited from unicorns like Uniphore and Medibuddy through secondary sales/acquisitions, it recently made returns of over 32,000 per cent by partially exiting Ather Energy during the EV maker’s IPO. ”There are close to 10-15 companies where we are likely to see full exits in next 4-5 years,” Ghosh said.
Ghosh adds that an increased structured support in the pre-incubation stage at the Institute has helped IITMIC scale in quantity and quality. IIT-M also has a School of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, which houses its pre-incubator Nirmaan, that hosts over 120 pre-venture teams working on deep-tech technologies.
While the incubator took about 5 per cent equity in early days, it’s down to ~3 per cent now. Running like a frugal start-up themselves, IITMIC gets a boost from IIT alumni donations. “CSR donations from corporates are a key source of our funding, and more companies should consider this CSR avenue,” says Ghosh.
Evolution of deep tech
Despite marked change in funding for deep technologies, the revenue growth and market access for these entrepreneurs still remains a challenge, says Ghosh. “Large corporates and public sector units need to change their approach of working with start-ups vs dealing with large companies,” she said. The ease of doing business for start-ups need to improve, she added.
Speaking about the ventures that survive to see success, Ghosh says that last year about 20 per cent of the start-ups saw closures, due to various reasons such as founder relationships, lack of funding, lack of product-market fit, among others.
Chennai as a base
Responding to the increasing instances of start-ups mushrooming in IIT-M but moving out of the city as they scale, Ghosh notes that these are often done for market access and are a natural progression. “We are seeing our start-ups now set up satellite offices in various locations while being here; location really doesn’t matter,” she said.
IITMIC currently has a network of over 100 business mentors actively engaged with the start-ups comprising corporate leaders, serial entrepreneurs, domain experts, and others. Large number of pan IIT alumni are also mentors.
Published on December 1, 2025