The Centre for Research on Start-ups and Risk Financing (CREST) an Institute of Eminence Research Centre at IIT Madras has developed India’s first information platform on incubators and accelerators. 

The platform, developed in partnership with YNOS, an IIT Madras-incubated start-up, contains comprehensive information on incubators and accelerators, which play an important role in helping start-ups navigate an uncertain entrepreneurial ecosystem. While India had about 1,000 active incubators, until now, the information about them was scattered and not easily available in a single location. Entrepreneurs had to spend a lot of time and effort to identify the incubator most suitable for their start-up. 

The platform developed by CREST addresses this pain point and helps start-up founders to identify, compare, and analyse incubators very easily. Called ‘Incubators’, this AI-powered platform will help start-up founders to identify incubators and accelerators across India and shortlist one that best fits their requirements. 

Incubation is a very critical phase in the start-up lifecycle. Choosing the right incubator can significantly contribute to the success of the start-up in subsequent years. The Incubators Platform can also benefit the CEOs and Managers of incubation centres by getting the attention of start-up founders for their incubation centres benchmarking themselves against comparable incubators and constantly improving their effectiveness. Other stakeholders associated with the development of the start-up ecosystem such as educational institutions, government, and funding agencies, would also benefit from this platform. 

Dr. Jayesh Ranjan, IAS, principal secretary, Departments of Information Technology, Electronics and Communications, Industries and Commerce, Government of Telangana, and Member, Board of Directors of T-Hub, the largest incubator in India, formally launched the ‘Incubators’ platform at Hyderabad today (17th Nov 2023) in the presence of Prof. Thillai Rajan, A., Professor at the Department of Management Studies, IIT Madras, and Principal Investigator of CREST. Prof. Thillai Rajan is also the Founder and Director of YNOS Venture Engine. 

Congratulating CREST, IIT Madras, and YNOS for developing this platform, Ranjan said, “The growth of the Indian start-up ecosystem depends on a strong incubator ecosystem. Research has shown that there is a direct correlation between start-up formation and number of incubators. Recognising this, various governments have focused on strengthening the incubation ecosystem in the country.” 

Prof. A. Thillai Rajan added, “Apart from providing infrastructure, access to experts, partnerships with service providers, networks with investors, incubators also significantly influence the start-ups' journey. The role of an incubator and accelerator in the success of a start-up is as much as that of an investor, if not more. Therefore, it is critical that start-ups partner with the right incubator.” 

The Incubators platform has been developed using the latest technology tools to quickly analyse the incubator and accelerator landscape in India. It features intuitive filters on multiple incubator parameters to quickly identify the set of incubators that satisfy different criteria for shortlisting and a facility to bookmark shortlisted incubators for detailed assessment at a later stage 

The Highlights of the Incubators Platform include: 

• Data on more than 920 incubators and accelerators 
• Comprehensive information on each incubator such as host organisation, start-up funding agency, number of start-ups supported, and investors who have invested in the start-ups supported by the incubators, among others 
•  Focus areas of existing start-ups supported by the incubator 
•  Enables easy comparison of incubators on various parameters helping the start-up founders to decide on the incubator that would be most suitable for their start-up