IIT-M faculty founded 94 start-ups having valuation of 1,400 crore

According to the data shared by the IIT-M Incubation Cell, over 13 per cent of the staff are either founders or mentors for start-ups

From a start-up aiming to make hybrid aerial vehicles to ones working on converting waste to crude oil and efficient water transport solutions, faculty members at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras, have founded at least 94 enterprises, which have a combined valuation of over Rs 1,400 crore.

According to data shared by the IIT Madras Incubation Cell (IITMIC), the IIT faculty members have founded, mentored or advised over 240 start-ups in the past decade, which, at present, have a combined valuation of Rs 11,500 crore.

According to the IITMIC data, the number of faculty-founded startups rose sharply from 37 in April 2017 to 69 in June 2019 and 80 in 2020, before touching 94 by October 2021.

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As many as 77 faculty members from various departments of the institute were involved in setting up the start-ups — a figure that is nearly 13 per cent of the total institute's faculty strength of around 600, which is considered on a par with the best universities in the world, the IITMIC said.

One such start-up is aiming to make a new breed of aircraft, called hybrid aerial vehicles, for vertical take-offs and landings, as well as long-distance flights to ferry goods and passengers, ultimately leading to air taxi operations.

Another is working on mini launch vehicles to launch micro and nano satellites into space orbits. Among interesting projects were start-ups aiming to produce micro gas turbines for decentralised power generation; converting all kinds of waste, from municipal solid waste to agricultural waste, into crude oil; aiming to make earth observation satellites with multi-sensor fusion and edge-computing in space.

Tamaswati Ghosh, Chief Executive Officer, IITMIC, said, "Over 12 per cent of institute faculty are co-founders in our incubated start-ups working across a breadth of globally critical domains. This underlines our ability to translate cutting-edge scientific innovations to the field."

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The highest number of associated start-ups or spin-outs are from the departments of electrical, mechanical and civil engineering, followed by aeronautics and applied mechanics. "Several faculty members are involved in more than one start-up, either as a founder or mentor," Ghosh said.

These start-ups work primarily in deep technology areas, ranging from manufacturing, robotics, energy and renewables, e-mobility, space tech, Internet of Things, data sciences, biotechnology, healthcare, water treatment, waste-to-energy and waste management, e-mobility and electric vehicles, among others.

"Setting up a deep tech start-up is a hard task, and the gestation time from idea to reaching the market can be as much as four to five years. Even getting from the lab (post research stage) to an incubator can take two to three years. There is a 'valley of death' that a start-up faces between the lab and the incubator, and the first investor. Most academicians find it difficult to make the jump from the lab to the incubator," said Raghuttama Rao, Chief Executive Officer, Gopalakrishnan-Deshpande Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (GDC).

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