DARE - Because Entrepreneurs Do

KritiKal Solutions, which works in networking technologies and embedded systems space, was the first company incubated successfully from TBIU. Started off in Aug 2002 by seven students in collaboration with five faculty members, Kritikal was supported with a seed-funding of Rs 10 lakh for equipment, infrastructure, working capital and technology specific assignments for development as project sub-contracts. Last year, the company received equity investment of $20 million from the Nucleus Group. Its clientele comprises DRDO, Xerox, Genesys, Realtime Systems among others.

Founded in 2000 by the Foundation for Innovation and Technology Transfer (FITT) the industry interface unit of IIT Delhi, TBIU’s mandate is to promote and commercialize academic research through spin-offs—particularly those promoted by student-faculty groups. It was started with the idea of upscaling promising research projects and making them commercially viable through the incubator route.

The incubator has built up office modules of 2,400 sq ft capable of accommodating upto eight startups. The modules are equipped with electricity, power lines, telephone and internet facilities provided at concessional rates, along with a conference room and a separate reception and business center. Access to institute labs and R&D facilities is provided through the faculty at institutional rates. R&D support includes computing equipment, software, etc. Financial assistance is also provided to selected entrepreneurs through research assistantships and fellowships for a period of six months to a year.

A TBIU nursery fund has also been started, which is operated out of the operational surpluses of FITT. The nursery fund provides seed loans of upto Rs 15 lakh to the startups to initiate and sustain the incubation. The government of India has also provided grants of Rs 80 lakh and Rs 15 lakh for supporting IT/ITES projects and technology-based startups respectively. FITT also interacts with VC funds and angel investors in order to build a network to facilitate successful commercialization of the ventures.

Collaboration with institute faculty is a pre-requisite for getting selected as an incubatee. Only technology-centric ventures with homology in the institute are admitted. First preference is given to ideas by faculty or students of the institute or students from similar institutes, followed by technology based startups and technology or R&D units of SMEs, industrial or R&D organizations.

TBIU has so far had four companies operating after incubation, two companies having relocated operations elsewhere. Three companies had closed shop due to varied reasons. TBIU is currently in the process of incubating eight more companies. KritiKal Solutions, INRM Consultants, a solution provider in geographical systems and natural resource management, and VirtualWire Technologies, a wireless communication solutions provider, are some of the successful incubatee companies.

The average gestation period for an idea here is about two-and-a-half years. TBIU went into active operation in 2002 with two incubation positions. More infrastructure and facilities have since been added.

Says K K Roy, a manager at TBIU, “the objective of TBIU is to sensitize students and graduates to be entrepreneurs rather than job seekers.”