More than 50 startups have graduated from Startup Village's Physical and Virtual Incubation Programme and eight startups from Digital Incubation
Startup Village, the country's first public-private partnership business incubator, 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), a release said.
Last week, Startup Village entered its second phase with Kerala 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, it said.
"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," Startup Village chairman Sanjay Vijayakumar said. India's leading startups Ola, FreeCharge, Tally, FreshDesk and Citrus Pay are already supporting student startups through SV.CO.
"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 H K Mittal, head of the National S&T Entrepreneurship Development Board.
More than 50 startups have graduated from Startup Village's Physical and Virtual Incubation Programme and eight startups from Digital Incubation.
Sixty startups collectively raised funds to the tune of Rs 46.53 crore (Rs 465 million) 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 Visakhapatnam.
“It is a great honour 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.
Photograph: Sivaram V/Reuters