Kochi Startup Village creates one entrepreneur a day

Kochi: The Startup Village, which fired up the entrepreneurial aspirations of the young generation in Kerala, is creating one new entrepreneur a day, according to a top official.

With a total valuation of startups pegged at Rs 292 crore, the country's first PPP model internet-mobile incubator, which completed 1,000 days a month ago, is registering a quarter-to-quarter growth of 40 per cent in applications from new startups.

The Kochi-based Startup Village has so far 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 Rs 27 crore in funding from angel investors, private backers and seed funds and 161 have raised initial seed money from friends and family," said Sanjay Vijayakumar, Chairman, Startup Village.

He said 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.

Since its inception on April 15, 2012 until December 2014, the internet-mobile incubator received a total of 6,491 application requests.

A total of 960 (58 physical and 902 virtual startups) were incubated, 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.

"Survival of physically incubated startups is 96.5 per cent and of virtual 53 per cent, which shows that a physical ecosystem substantially increases the chances of a startup doing well," Vijayakumar said.

About the student startup community, he said of the 293 startups, 116 are active, 149 inactive and 28 fizzled out.

Paucity of funds accounted for 18 per cent of the mortality of student startups.

"Lack of family support (10.5 per cent), well-placed jobs (43 per cent), unviable business idea (11 per cent), competition from a better player (7 per cent) and pursuit of higher studies (3.5 per cent) were among the other major factors that aborted some of these startups," Vijayakumar said.

He said the recent visits by high-profile central delegations, including by Union Minister for IT Ravi Shankar Prasad and MSME Minister Kalraj Mishra, to see Startup Village first-hand and its replicability were encouraging.

"It is replicable and scalable. We believe that there need to be budget allocations to scale this model across many states in India," Vijayakumar added.