Kerala’s Startup Village named India's best incubator

Startup Village, which has supported nearly 590 physical and virtual incubatees in Kochi and 200 in Visakhapatnam, has been named India's best startup incubator by the Entrepreneur Magazine in their list of 100 best startup incubators in India.

"It is a great honor 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.

Also, last week, Startup Village entered its second phase with Kerala Chief Minister PinarayiVijayan 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.

"SV.CO is the next big iteration of Startup Village, to give a world class student startup ecosystem to all 5 million engineering students in India, who will build the future of our nation," Startup Village Chairman Sanjay Vijayakumar said.

Other startups including Ola, FreeCharge, Tally, FreshDesk and Citrus Pay are already supporting student startups through SV.CO.

H K Mittal, Head of the National S&T Entrepreneurship Development Board said, "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."

More than 50 startups have graduated from Startup Village's Physical and Virtual Incubation Programme and eight startups from Digital Incubation, where 60 startups collectively raised funds of Rs 46.53 crore during the 6-month incubation program.