Startup Village witnesses record 286 sign-ups in February

Startup Village has achieved a new milestone with a record 286 young applicants signing up at the mobile-internet technology incubator in the month of February, hoping to bring their fledgling business ideas to life.

A total of 286 would-be entrepreneurs, the highest number for any month, applied online in February expressing an interest in signing up with the incubation programme, taking cue from the success of other companies like RHL Vision and MobME Wireless Solutions, incubated at the Start-up Village and Technopark-TBI, respectively.

The total number of incubator applications at the Village so far has reached 1,742 and the number of start-ups supported is 540.

Hon’ble Kerala Chief Minister Shri Oommen Chandy said it was heartening to see students taking advantage of the policies framed by the government to support entrepreneurship and job creation.

“Now that the Mahatma Gandhi and Kerala universities have adopted the Student Entrepreneurship scheme we expected even more young people in college campuses to start companies and businesses. Any student signing up with an incubator from these institutions will receive all benefits under the scheme,” the Chief Minister said.

Hon’ble Minister for Industries and Information Technology Shri P K Kunhalikutty said the government is enthused to see the response from the youth in creating a new entrepreneurship culture in Kerala. “Our IT Policy 2012 has laid out a vision for creating 3,000 start-ups by 2020 and we are confident of achieving it ahead of time. Seeing the encouraging response we have also decided to establish a Technology Incubation Zone at Kinfra Hi-Tech Park and the first building for this is being set up,” he added.

With the advent of more incubatees, the main challenge the Startup Village is going to face is infrastructure deficit, MobME Chief Executive Officer Sanjay Vijayakumar said.

“MobME will approach the state government with our proposal to further develop the infrastructure at the Village under PPP mode,” said Mr. Sanjay Vijayakumar, who is also the Chairman of the Startup Village. The MobME Board has also approved construction of its office building at the Village and to set aside some space for incubation companies.

 “The success of companies like MobME has inspired many start-ups at Technopark TBI and now with new ventures succeeding at the Startup Village, we are literally in the midst of an entrepreneurial boom in state,” said Startup Village CEO Sijo Kuruvilla George. “Startup Village needs support from multiple stakeholders in both public and private sectors to create infrastructure for accommodating new young entrepreneurs,” Sijo added.