The start-up route to entrepreneurship

Campus start-ups play a pivotal role

A growing number of students in the State seem to be taking the road less travelled by turning early entrepreneurs.

Estimates by the Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM), the government’s nodal agency to support and nurture start-ups, show that over 10,000 aspiring entrepreneurs are being moulded through campus start-ups set up across higher educational institutions.

About 1,120 start-ups are being incubated at 226 Innovation Entrepreneurship Development Centres (IEDCs) in higher educational institutions, especially in the technical education sector.

The start-ups being supported by the KSUM outside the campuses come to around 800. Of this, 151 are start-ups being led by women. Together, the start-ups in the State will have generated over 20,000 jobs.

A sector-wise analysis show 45 % of the start-ups in the State are in the IT sector; healthcare (11%); education (9%); and hardware and IOT (6%).

Decline in failure rate

“Quality-wise, we have seen tremendous improvement among the startups in the State since 2014. There is a substantive change in quality. The failure rate has declined. The portfolio of companies has diversified,” says Saji Gopinath, Chief Executive Officer, KSUM.

The IEDCs act as the link between the KSUM and the entrepreneurs on the campuses. The centres are small incubators within colleges where students with innovative ideas can pursue entrepreneurship along with their studies.

Apart from IEDC-run entrepreneurship development programmes, technical workshops, and hands-on training for students, focus is now given to developing socially relevant start-up products when students do their final year projects. Any start-up with a technology / innovation-oriented product is considered for incubation.

Support system

Mr. Gopinath said start-ups were supported through seed-funding, connecting with accelerators, mentorship, industry connects, patent supports, international exposure, networking support for national conferences, meet-the-mentor sessions, connecting with investors, start-up boxes etc.

“There has been an increase in external investment in start-ups being incubated in the State,” he said. The early entrepreneurs on the campuses have now received a boost after the government launched the Integrated Startup Complex under the KSUM here in January.

Spread over 1.80 lakh sq ft at the Technology Innovation Zone (TIZ) in Kalamassery, the facility will host incubators, accelerators, centres of excellence in emerging technologies and provide quality infrastructure for the development and growth of startups.

Once fully developed into a full-fledged campus having over half-a-million sq ft built-up area, TIZ is expected to become the largest Work-Live-Play space exclusively dedicated to start-ups in the country.