The rare academic-to-founder journeys that succeed

On June 23, the World Economic Forum released a list of 100 startups that made it to the agency’s Technology Pioneers cohort for 2025. In the list were ten Indian deeptech startups, namely Agnikul, CynLr, Dezy, Digantara, Equal, Exponent Energy, Freight Tiger, GalaxEye, SolarSquare, and The ePlane Co. Three of these—Agnikul, GalaxEye, and The ePlane Co.— have something in common: they were co-founded by Satyanarayanan ‘Satya’ Chakravarthy, a professor of aerospace engineering at IIT Madras. 

Though from a different domain, molecular computing, Manoj Gopalakrishnan’s journey is similar to that of Chakravarthy in that he is also an academic-turned-entrepreneur. An associate professor at IIT Bombay, Gopalkrishnan, founded Algorithmic Biologics in 2020 to commercialise a COVID testing innovation developed during the pandemic. 

The two are part of a small number of academics in India who have translated their research into fundable, scalable startups. Successful academic-to-entrepreneur transitions are rare.   

Data from the data intelligence platform YNOS Venture Engine suggests that less than a quarter (23.7%) of startups with an academic co-founder have been able to raise Series A or later-stage funding, and only 5% have raised funds beyond Series D.