Kochi: Even as an entrepreneurship wave has hit Kerala campuses of late, the Young Entrepreneurship Summit organised by the government in Kochi in September drew over 4,000 young men and women, making a declaration of sorts that the GenNext of Kerala had arrived on the scene.
The enthusiasm of the young is being reflected in a surge of incubators across the state. Over the last six months alone some 20 such incubators have either already become active or are waiting in the wings to host entrepreneurs of the future.
Over the last month, the Kerala State Industrial Development Corporation (KSIDC) announced the launch of four incubators.
The first has already started operating from the Infopark campus in Kochi and the other three are coming up in Angamali, Thiruvananthapuram and Kozhikode. While Kitco, a government-run consultancy, has launched an incubator for non-IT companies, 10 other companies including SunTech, Ernst and Young and ICFOS at the Technopark have started incubators for startup companies in the IT sector.
Kerala is not new to incubators as the first , the Technopark Business Incubation Centre (TBIC), was started in 2005 and was followed by another run by the National Institute of Technology, Calicut. “TBIC has incubated over 104 companies and almost all of them have been successful,” says Mr K C Chandrasekharan Nair, its first CEO.
But it was the incubator at Startup Village, Kochi, which started two years ago, that caught the imagination of the young as big names like former Infosys chief, Kris Gopalakrishnan lent their names to it.
High profile visitors from the world’s leading technology companies also helped the venture establish itself.
“We have physically incubated 53 companies and all of them have been successful in getting funding of varied amounts,” says Mr Pranav Kumar Suresh, its chief executive officer, adding that 200 more are waiting their turn.
Responding to the demand, Startup Village opened its second facility in Kozhikode last month. “We have already received over 50 applications for the 42-seater facility,” reveals Mr Suresh. Start-up Village has now caught the fancy of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister , N Chandrababu Naidu and will launch its centre in Visakhapatanam next month.
While most incubators are in the IT space , the latest wave has hit the non-IT sectors such as agriculture, food processing and manufacturing as well.
Sree Chithira Thirunal Institute of Medical Sciences and Technology, Thiruvananthapuram, has launched an incubator for startups manufacturing medical equipment and Central institutes like the Central Plantation Crops Research Institute, Kasaragod, the Central Institute of Fisheries Research and the Indian Institute of Spice Research, both in Kozhikode, too now have their own facilities for startups.
The state, which has been sending qualified people abroad for generations, has a specialised incubator for NRIs as well. Set up in the Infopark campus in Kochi, it hosts about 17 companies.
“The main criterion for the selection of companies is the product identification capability of the promoters,” explains Mr Arun Balachandran, its CEO,adding, “We prefer people who can sell their products in a global market.”
