By Ashraf Padanna/Thiruvananthapuram
Startup Village, the telecom incubator of Kerala, is producing a startup firm every day, its promoters said yesterday. In a statement issued here, its chairman Sanjay Vijayakumar said it has surpassed its targets by creating one new entrepreneur a day with total valuation of startups pegged at Rs2.92bn.
Infusion of funds and participation of public and private sectors have been crucial in its success in creating an ecosystem that fires up the entrepreneurial aspirations of youngsters in Kerala, the statement added.
The Startup Village, India’s first PPP model incubator which completed its 1,000th day on January 10 this year, produced 533 startups, 116 of them being campus startups, and created a total of 2,889 jobs by the end of 2014.
Thirty-seven startups have raised Rs270mn in funding from angel investors, private backers and seed funds and 161 have raised initial seed money from friends and family.
Since its inception on April 15, 2012, until December 2014, the internet-mobile incubator received a total of 6,491 applications, incubated 960 (58 physical and 902 virtual startups), of which 533 are currently active.
Of the 58 physical startups, 56 are currently active and two failed. Of the 902 virtual startups, 477 are active and 355 inactive while 70 were aborted.
“The survival of physically incubated startups is 96.5% and that of virtual startups is 53%, which shows that a physical ecosystem substantially increases the chances of a startup doing well,” said Vijayakumar.
On the student startup community, he said, of the 293 startups, 116 are active, 149 inactive and 28 had fizzled out.
Paucity of funds accounted for 18% of the mortality of student startups. Lack of family support (10.5%), well-placed jobs (43%), un-viable business idea (11%), competition from a better player (7%) and pursuit of higher studies (3.5%) were among the other major factors that aborted some of these startups.
“Such a scenario makes it imperative for bigger investments in startup projects, be it through angel funding, government support (budgetary provisions), family backing or crowd funding,” he said.
“The Startup Village has created a great ecosystem focused on early stage startups. There is huge scope for further growth and if the constraints of infrastructure and funds are addressed, we can give India its Silicon Coast.”
He said applications to Startup Village witnessed a QoQ (quarter-on-quarter) growth of 40%, indicating an accelerated growth in the entrepreneurial culture amongst the youth. As compared to 136 applications in the fourth quarter (October-December) of 2012, the cumulative number was 1,287 and 5,971 in the corresponding period of 2013 and 2014, respectively.
