Startup Village Ranked India’s Best Incubator

KOCHI:
Startup Village, India’s first public-private partnership business incubator that triggered a sea change in the student entrepreneurship environment and at the government policy level across the country, has been named India’s best startup incubator.
Startup Village is ranked Number One in a first-of-its-kind, comprehensive ranking by the India edition of Entrepreneur Magazine of the 100 best startup incubators in India (25 across sectors and 75 sector specific).
Only last week Startup Village launched into its second phase with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan launching the online platform SV.CO that aims to provide a fully digital incubation framework to five million students in 3,500 engineering colleges across the country.
SV.CO, which has a go ahead from the Centre’s Department of Science and Technology, is now looking at key partnerships to join its mission in building a world-class student startup ecosystem in India.
“SV.CO is the next big iteration of Startup Village, to give a world class student startup ecosystem to all 5 Million engineering students India, who will build the future of our nation. Our success in first phase was due to the support from public and private sector partners” said Startup Village Chairman Sanjay Vijayakumar.
“As a innovative platform that intends to offer everything from admission to learning, mentorship and graduation through digital infrastructure, SV.CO is opening up multiple areas of collaboration for partners who are willing to come on board with us on this mission across India.” he added.
India’ leading startups Ola, Free Charge, Tally, FreshDesk, Citrus Pay are already supporting student startups through SV.CO.
The latest accolade for Startup Village (SV) comes on the heels of the National Award for Technology Business Incubator from the Government of India in 2015. It tops a list that includes incubators at the Kerala Startup Mission, IIT Madras, IIT Bombay, IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Bangalore, IIIT Hyderabad and Bits Pilani.
“The PPP model of Startup Village gives its tremendous ability to create deeper impact and it has been changing the whole culture of student entrepreneurship across the nation.” said Dr H K Mittal, Head of the National S&T Entrepreneurship Development Board.
The Entrepreneur magazine survey assessed the incubators on the basis of several criteria, including the number of graduating startups, their success in raising funds and funding-equity and the duration of the programme.
More than 50 startups have graduated from SV’s Physical and Virtual Incubation Programme and 8 startups from Digital Incubation. Sixty startups collectively raised funds to the tune of Rs 46.53 crore during or after the 6-month incubation programme.
Since 2012, Startup Village has supported nearly 590 Physical and Virtual Incubatees in Kochi and 200 in Vizag.
“It is a great honor for Startup Village to be named the country’s best incubator just as it gears up for even bigger challenges in its search for a billion dollar campus startup.” said Kris Gopalakrishnan, Infosys Co-Founder and Chief Mentor of Startup Village.
One of SV.CO’s flagship initiatives is the intensive Silicon Valley Programme which aims to help ambitious students build real products and launch their startups in just six months. It is already inviting applications through https://www.sv.co/apply for the programme, which includes a one-week trip to Silicon Valley that will give the participants a chance to get global exposure.