  India’s first public-private partnership incubator, Startup Village, with a investment of Rs 100 crore and the aim of nurturing over 1,000 student start-ups took off in Kochi on Sunday.
Infosys Co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan , who is also chief mentor of the startup village inaugurated it. He Described it as a "milestone" in Kerala and said the concept was to create an ecosystem "to increase the confidence and probability of success."
The first technology business incubator in the telecom sector is looking to emulate the famed Silicon Valley incubators and transform Kerala into ‘Silicon Coast’. The project will kick-start the search for the billion-dollar company to rise out of an Indian campus.
The Startup Village campus will have full 4G network and advanced telecom labs. It will also provide services, including legal, intellectual property and accounting, in addition to fully furnished office space, video conference rooms and virtual office services. The hub will extend a host of perks, like three-year service tax exemption up to Rs 50 lakh revenues. The incubator companies can by default make a pitch presentation to Startup Village Angel Fund, promoted by the broadest community of entrepreneurs.
The ambitious project, which has several firsts to its credit, aims to transform job seekers into job creators. It is being set up by the National Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board (NSTEDB) under the DST, and the Kerala Government-run Technopark, in collaboration with MobME Wireless – a private firm which began as a student start-up and has grown to become one of India’s top 10 emerging companies. |