Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SINE), the incubation centre at IIT Bombay, is looking to expand its operations as it sees steep rise in number of student-start-ups vying for space.

The 12-year-old incubator has 28 start-ups. It expects the number to rise to 50-60 by next year and to 200 over the next six years, said Milind Atrey, chief executive, SINE.

Of the 28 start-ups being incubated at SINE, 20 are housed in the facility and the remaining eight are being virtually mentored. Over the last decade, SINE has taken 82 start-ups under its umbrella, of which 40 have been graduated.

“We are open to our alumni and students. At least one co-founder should be from our institute. That is because we are running short of space. Suddenly, so much of enthusiasm has come that right now we are incubating 28 companies and 15 are on waiting list,” said Atrey.

At present, SINE is being operated out of IIT-Bombay campus. The incubator has recently leased another facility in Hiranandani, Powai, which has emerged as the local start-up hub. “We have a new building coming up (in IIT-Bombay), which will have fully equipped labs,” he said. “With this, we will have close to 50-60 start-ups over next one-and-a-half years and about 200 companies over next six years.”

“Right now, we have almost 250 people working in these 20 companies. These 50 start-ups may have 1,000 people over the next one-and-a-half years,” he added. SINE, which has been selected as Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship, will invest a part of the Rs 50-crore fund in the new building. It is also expanding its start-up ecosystem by collaborating with private companies and the government.

Under its recently launched accelerator programme with Department of Science and Intel, it will incubate 20 firms related to electronic hardware for a year, which will involve focused training and one-to-one mentorship. Earlier this month, SINE partnered with Russia’s Global Venture Alliance, which provides business services, training programmes and seed funding for start-ups to launch “India-Russia Bridge for Innovations”, a bilateral entrepreneur exchange programme.

Under the program, ten start-ups from India are participating in a 2-week accelerator program that will introduce them to the Russian market.

The incubator is in talks with Russia’s GVA for further collaboration, said Atrey. SINE, on behalf of Indian government, is also working with government of Switzerland to organise the second edition of Academia Industry Training, Swissnex India, a program aimed at supporting researchers from top Swiss and Indian universities in transforming their applied research into market application. Currently, SINE is in process of choosing 10-20 people, who will participate in the workshop at Bangalore, of which 2-3 people go to Switzerland.

“We are seeing a lot of interest from countries like Switzerland, Russia, England, EU, US, Canada and Israel,” said Atrey. “Though nothing concrete has come out of it yet, but the attempts have already started and fruits of that will come in 2-3 years.”

“Foreign companies, governments and incubators are looking at India as a possible innovation and talent hub, where they can collaborate. As soon as something significant comes out of these attempts, things will get accelerated,” he added. “We expect this to happen over next five years.”

Source: The Business Standard

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