The incubator illusion: Why India’s startup factories rarely deliver

Earlier this year, Chennai-headquartered spacetech startup Agnikul Cosmos made history when it successfully launched a rocket equipped with the world’s first single-piece, 3D-printed engine. The eight-year-old startup’s breakthrough moment, though, likely wouldn’t have been possible without its early tryst with the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras Incubation Cell (IITMIC)—the country’s leading deeptech startup incubator. “We were building a deeptech company when no one else was, and at that time, IIT-Madras’ tag was crucial for us to get the validation we required,” recounts Srinath Ravichandran, CEO of Agnikul.

Ravichandran adds that the programme taught Agnikul, which was scarcely six months old when it entered IITMIC’s programme, how to manage the legal and compliance part of the business and provided it with access to the wider startup community. “Luckily for us, when we were at IITMIC, TiE (an entrepreneurship-focused non-profit) organised an event in Chennai, which is where we met our first investor,” he tells The CapTable.

Agnikul is hardly IITMIC’s only success story. EV 2-wheeler maker Ather Energy and MediBuddy, which claims to be India’s largest digital healthcare platform, also found their feet at the incubator.

As the name suggests, incubators are organisations that support startups in their early stages, helping develop their businesses and providing necessary training. This includes holding workshops on relevant domains, classes on fundraising, bookkeeping, pitching, and even organising sessions with industry veterans.