Start-ups at Kochi StartUp Village valued at Rs 292 cr

Produces 533 active start-ups as the Kerala-based incubator completes 1,000 days

Kerala-based StartUp Village on Friday said it has surpassed the targets with the total valuation of start-ups pegged at Rs 292 crore.

The Kochi-headquartered incubator, launched with an agenda to create an ecosystem that would fire up entrepreneurial aspirations of youngsters in Kerala is India’s first public-private-partnership model incubator and has completed 1,000 days on January 10 and produced 533 start-ups with 116 of them being launched by students. They have created 2,889 jobs at the end of 2014. Thirty-seven of these start-ups have raised Rs 27 crore in funding from angel investors, private backers and seed funds, and 161 have raised an initial seed money from friends and families, said the incubator.

Since its inception on April 15, 2012 until December 2014, the incubator received 6,491 application requests. A total of 960 (58 physical and 902 virtual start-ups) were incubated, of which 533 are currently active. Of the 58 physical start-ups, 56 are currently active and two have failed. Of the 902 virtual start-ups, 477 are active and 355 inactive while 70 were aborted, it added. “Survival of physically incubated start-ups is 96.5 per cent and of virtual 53 per cent, which shows that a physical ecosystem substantially increases the chances of a start-up doing well,” said Sanjay Vijayakumar, chairman.

Paucity of funds accounted for 18 per cent of the mortality of student start-ups. A lack of family support (10.5 per cent), well-placed jobs (43 per cent), unviable business idea (11 per cent), competition from a better player (7 per cent) and pursuit of higher studies (3.5 per cent) were among the other major factors that resulted in the abortion of some of these start-ups.

The incubator is now collaborating with the Kerala government and Technopark-Technology Business Incubator to develop an entrepreneurial pipeline in the state. Startup Boot Camps, launched by the state government, have been established in 25 colleges across the state with Startup Village acting as the mentor institution.

For every Rs 1 grant-in-aid received by the incubator from the Centre, Rs 4 have been donated as grant-in-aid by the private sector and Rs 23 have been raised by start-ups, thereby creating a multiplier effect in fund utilisation, the incubator stated.

“The biggest recognition for the efforts of Startup Village, comes from the fact that we are collaborating with the Andhra Pradesh government to replicate the model. Launched in December last year, it has already incubated 51 start-ups there,” said chief executive officer Pranav Kumar Suresh.