IIT Madras Incubation Cell partners with NativeLead Foundation to nurture and scale Startups in Tamil Nadu
IITMIC aims to incubate 1000 startups per year by 2030
Chennai, August 23rd , 2022: IITM Incubation Cell, India’s leading Deep-tech Start-up hub, announced its par tne rship with NativeLead Foundation – India’s first angel driven ecosystem, empowering young minds of Tamil Nadu to become innovators and entrepreneurs. The partnership aims to identify, nurture and help scale startups from Institutes, Incubators particularly in Tier 2/3/4 cities – local entrepreneurs, address local challenges and build so lutions for wider impact.
The collaboration also ties into IITMIC’s 10X initiative of Accelerated Incubation, geared towards achieving an ambitious 1000 incubations by 2030, through empowering young emerging entrepreneurs from India’s rural pockets.
NativeLead Angels currently has six local chapters in Tamil Nadu (Madurai, Coimbatore, Erode, Karur, Trichy and Thoothukudi) and three Native Connec t Chapters (Chennai, Washington DC and Tokyo). Their core objective is to in vest and nurture startups emerging from the small towns of TN.
IITMIC and NativeLead will jointly leverage their network to provide value added support including mentorship, market access, training for strengthe ning entrepreneurial ecosystems and growth of incubated startups at IITM IC and its partner institutes/incubators across the state.
Focus will be in domains (but not limited to) of Agritech, Retail, Healthtech, Edutech and Cleantech, with social impact and ESG compliance.
Prof. Ashok Jhunjhunwala, President – IITM Incubation Cell, RTBI and IIT Madras Research Park, said: Rural ent repreneurs are very important for India. They have the edge of finding localised solutions to challenges that are unique to India. This is a mark of true indigenous innovation. Through this partnership with NativeLead our visi on is aligned to strengthen this start-up ecosystem and make it accessible for entrepreneurs in regional areas. We will leverage our respective strengths to jointly provide mentorship and every value-added support to par tner institutions and their entrepreneurial ventures.”
Mr. Nagaraja Prakasam, Founder Chairman, NativeLead, added, “Nativ elead’s vision is to Enable, Nurture, Incu bate and Invest with the goal to provide necessary new age tools to entrepreneurs in small towns of TamilNadu for inclusive growth. With more youth driven towards tec hnology, we are proud to partner with IITM Incubation Cell the premie r institute of the country to bring the tech for good and empower yout h in solving local problems using technology”.
ABOUT IITM INCUBATION CELL
IITM Incubation Cell (nodal incubator of IIT Madras) has emerged as India’s leading Deep Technology Startup hu b with Innovation and Impact as key differentiators/drivers. Over the last 10 years of its operations, IITMIC has overseen over 270 new incubations, founded by IITM members (faculty, staff, students, and alumni) and external entrepreneurs (50%). The companies span the breadth of deep tech areas in globally critical domains, including manufacturing, robotics, energy, e-mobility, IoT, AI/ML, space, healthcare, water, agri-tech. Today, the incubated startups are together valued at over ₹32,000 crores and have created over 7000 direct jobs.
ABOUT NativeLead Foundation
NativeLead Foundation (https://nativelead.org/) is a non-for-profit organization which operates with a vision to make South Tamil Nadu a hub of regional innovation and business leadership. Their focus is on providing a dyn amic platform aimed at empowering young minds of Tamil Nadu to become innovators and entrepreneurs th rough practical learning.
