Incubation, one among the many buzzwords that you might have heard in conversation with your “Entrepreneurially-motivated” friend. But as one transcends those casual conversations, you’ll get to know that incubation is an essential phase in every startup’s journey. Startup Incubation & Innovation Centre (SIIC) is a launchpad for purpose-driven entrepreneurs at IIT Kanpur. It provides Incubation facilities to students and Entrepreneurs in the diverse technological areas of Healthcare, Agri-Tech, Med-Tech, Robotics, Geoinformatics, Artificial Intelligence, and Social Entrepreneurship. Not just this, SIIC is a one-point contact for all matters related to incubation, entrepreneurship, technology transfer, and commercialization at IIT Kanpur.
SIIC was set up in collaboration with the Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) to foster innovation, research, and entrepreneurial activities in technology-related areas. SIIC’s success is evident from the fact that so far 100+ startups are a part of their portfolio, of which around 60 have graduated. Also, around INR 100+ Crores have been invested in various ventures.
There are many inspiring incubation stories at SIIC. Vox got in touch with a couple of these startups. The first one, Doorastha Analytics, is based out of Delhi and is focussed on mitigating the obstacle of sustainability in the Solar Off-Grid Systems. They have developed and prototyped a solution named iLUMY (Intelligent Laghu Urja Mapan Yantra) for measurement and monitoring of Solar Micro & Mini-grids.
The founder of the startup, Mr. Atanu Mukerjee shares his story with us, “Starting by working in the solar space and rural areas, we realized that there was a shortage of access and availability of electricity for productive purposes. We realized that most of the available solutions were CSR driven. They die out once the financer loses their focus. That is when we thought of coming up with a self-sustainable solution that not only provides electricity to the beneficiary but at the same time creates employment for 2-3 people on site. Our focus was on optimizing the operation cost. At the same time, we sought to employ data analytics to maximize the ROI for each plant.
Our journey preceding contact with SIIC has been eventful. Before SIIC, we were incubated at Villgro, who is the implementation partner for the INVENT Program. Through them, we came in contact with SIIC in November 2018 when we were selected for funding and incubation support through the social incubation program, INVENT, at SIIC. The experience with SIIC has been very promising and positive. We’ve had excellent insights from the people they have networked us with. The impact and the network we have been connected to has been positive.
The experience with an incubation center primarily depends on the people running it. We’ve worked with quite a few now. The very first one being government-run was very bureaucratic. More things happened on paper as compared to the impact. We even had trouble with selecting a Mentor.
With SIIC, first off, we had a very great experience with our Mentor for the INVENT Program, Mr. Rishi Srivastava. He is very incisive with his views and helps us take a solid look at how we are doing. He is critical with his analysis, and he is very well connected. All this put together goes to show that it ultimately boils down to how things are run, and we’ve had a great experience with SIIC. A lot of activities are continually happening even though we are based out of Delhi. Apart from the overall funding and networking with potential investors, SIIC, through its team of portfolio managers helped to provide us with publicity and visibility in various forums and portals.
We are currently looking forward to the CIVIC Tech: India 2019 for which we have been shortlisted.”
“CIVIC Tech: India 2019” event was kicked off by SIIC, in collaboration with Village Capital and Omidyar Network, on 26th June this year. This program aimed to improve government service delivery and to increase citizen engagement for better governance.
In this event, SIIC had shortlisted startups from its portfolio, among which Doorastha was one. The winners of this event will get 1:1 mentorship with sector leaders, and tailored engagements with strategic partners and investors. Participating ventures had to evaluate each other using Village Capital’s unique peer-due diligence methodology, and Village Capital explored the potential of investing in peer-selected ventures from the bunch. Omidyar Network too took the top enterprises from the program to an advanced stage for further support and potential investment.
The other startup we contacted is one closer to home. Campus Haat is an online social commerce platform for college students in India founded by our alum Mr. Guddu Kumar, Y10 CSE. At the time of his graduation, he felt a need for a Peer-2-Peer platform where students can freely trade (buy-sell-rent-donate) among themselves. He says, “We started with a website (www.campushaat.com), in December 2015. The traffic began to grow, and the overall response was positive. Until this point, there was no plan to expand Campus Haat into other colleges or make revenue. Things changed after a stint with Dawaibox, Mumbai (Co-founded by Vibhav Agarwal, Y10, IIT Kanpur) where I gained confidence and exposure to the startup atmosphere. At this time Akshat Srivastava (Y13, CHM, IIT Kanpur), who was in the final year at IIT Kanpur joined the team as a Co-Founder. After deciding to startup, we started looking for guidance and help. That’s when we got to know about SIIC through my friend Nikhil Kurele who also has his company, Nocca Robotics, incubated at SIIC. Upon contacting SIIC, we were suggested to go for the NIDHI-EIR fellowship scheme, which helps aspiring entrepreneurs to get some funds every month for one year. We already knew that SIIC gave entrepreneurs a coworking space, but we came to know that they also offered residential space, which was unique to them among all Incubators in India. But the process was unknown to most of the students at that time, including us.
We got incredible support from the SIIC team, right from framing the idea and getting the right business plan to help in pitching efficiently. We were awarded maximum support assistance in EIR, and thus we planned for getting incubated here at SIIC. The Incubation process was reasonably seamless comprising only of a presentation in front of the Incubation Committee which had members from the Innovation Council of IIT Kanpur, some faculty members, some successful alumni entrepreneurs, and private investors. The only thing other than the presentation was a background check on the founders.
We have applied for the HDFC CSR grant under the Community empowerment category and are waiting for the results. After successfully testing our Idea and solutions, we are ready to open our portal for the students in other colleges and are hopeful for the future.”
The Smart Start-up Meet 2019 with HDFC Bank was organized by SIIC to give a fresh perspective on the current Fin-tech and Banking needs of the country. The event welcomed a lot of new ideas for discussion. Greater importance was given to the opportunities with mass level disruption. HDFC Bank partnered with SIIC to explore opportunities to fund startups in selected areas of Sustainable development, Community empowerment, Clean/renewable energy. SIIC regularly organizes networking and pitching sessions for the entrepreneurs on the campus. Very recently, we had the Medical Technology Hackathon (22nd May to 25th May), and the Smart startUp Meet 2019 was conducted on 28th May. A lot of opportunities are also being presented through their various Venture Capitalists, Industry and Government connect.
Apart from the prospects of Incubation for all Entrepreneurs and the various events conducted by the SIIC, a set of student-centric schemes have been very recently added to the cohort of opportunities available for IITK students.
Not to forget, there’s also the Deferred Placement Program (DPP).
SIIC boasts a highly professional team working with a committee of reputed investors of India who take the call on incubation of any business idea. Thus, an offer of incubation at SIIC is a unique stamp of approval for any business idea.
Summing up with a crunchy stat cookie: ~65% of IITK graduates who got incubated at SIIC succeeded in establishing an independent enterprise. Also, for all the Bio-Tech entrepreneurs out there, the applications for BIG with a grant-in-aid of 5 million is open now. What’s more to say? #gopitch
Credits – Snehil Saluja
Edited by Yash Kuwade
