VIT-TBI : Nurturing Startups
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VIT-TBI : Nurturing Startups
Bangalore: Have you ever thought you will get the answers to questions relating to your genetics just through your saliva? Yes, it is. It is made possible by Xcode Life Science, an incubatee in Vellore Institute of Technology's Technology Business Incubator (VIT-TBI). Xcode is a startup company with many such brilliant ideas. MSi Biotech that deals with production of enzymes to treat the effluent of industries; ThinkCore Technologies, an enterprise productized software development organization targeting SME's; and Equvia Web Services, online technology enabled rental system, are among few of other such brilliant incubatee today in VIT-TBI. VIT-TBI is a joint initiative by VIT University and Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India, formed in the year 2003 to promote technology-based articulation in this region. It was incorporated to support auto companies, bio-tech and some other specialized companies through the support of Department of Science and Technology. They further increased their area of concentration due to huge demand and started supporting ITC, bio-tech, manufacturing and few other areas. With more than 23 companies under their flagship, more than 11 have moved out successfully and 13 are still under various stages of incubation. They have sorted alliances with the government and non-government agencies to bring in as much value as possible for the clientele. One such example is the Technology Development Board of India, which helped VIT-TBI to fund the start-up. With state of the art machinery, equipment, computing facilities, communication networks, start-up friendly infrastructure, individual incubation cells with common resource sharing arrangement to support budding entrepreneurs from among students and technocrats from this region. Situated inside the University Of Vellore Institute Of Technology, it leverages all the resources that are available within the campus such as access to laboratory, workshops, development and testing centers, computing resources, internet access and above all the human resources. In addition to these resources, VIT-TBI also has a network of eminent professionals, academicians, bankers, venture capitalists and businessmen, who can extend support to these ventures. VIT-TBI's focus is to create commercially successful high-tech ventures by nurturing them with the resources these ventures need. In the early stage, VIT-TBI will assist the incubatee in assessing the market potential of the business idea by guiding through the process, which the incubatee has to implement on his own with his resources and some assistance from VIT-TBI. The early stage consulting offered by VIT-TBI will be free and when the promoter and VIT-TBI are satisfied with the project idea and its success potential, the incubatee enters into an agreement with VIT-TBI for availing the services of the TBI on mutually agreed terms and conditions. The management team has extensive experience in entrepreneurship, product development and marketing, securing venture capital funding and organizational development and provides guidance to the incubatees starting from the initial stage of bootstrapping the idea to getting funding from the VC firms. VIT has a very good relation with a network of players in its business incubation ecosystem. Benefits of being in the network results in providing considerable value addition in its services to the incubatees. VIT-TBI provides the services on a commercial basis; however their objective is to help these ventures succeed in the market place. They have several models of compensation payable to VIT-TBI for linking to risk they share with the venture being incubated. The compensation models extents in either of the following: Rental and Paid services, Royalty Payment, Equity Ownership, Deferred Payment, Technology Rights Ownership Sharing and a combination of one or more of the aforesaid models. "With our annual B-plan competition Concpio, we provide an opportunity to the winners to pitch their ideas in an intense Elevator Pitch session presided over by the top VCs and angel investors. Organizations such as TIETS and TiE with large VC circles also support us in the funding process," says A. Balachandran, General Manager, VIT-TBI. VIT-TBI has constituted two different Seed Support Systems for Start-up companies, Technology Development Board, Government of India; and National Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board, Government of India. These schemes help them to offer early stage financial support for deserving ideas/ technologies requiring up scaling and related work. The quantum of financial assistance ranges from a minimum of 1 lakh to 50 lakhs in the form of a soft loan. But for this, TBI will enter into a proper agreement with the start-up. Their support extends to testing and trials, test marketing, mentoring, professional consultancy, manpower and any other activity as deemed necessary. To avail this facility, one needs to apply for Business Incubation Support in TBI. The institute nurtures the startups during the early stages of their incubation for the initial two-three years under their incubation program. "We even stretch our program further to a year or so for those incubatees which have good potential and a great idea," adds Balachandran. India has great potential for startups; some of them have resources and are self sufficient to stand in the competition, however, few lack these resources. "There are many successes that we see graduating from our institute. But, there are very few incubation centers in India; private and multinational companies should lend their helping hands to play a vital role as partners or alone to help these potential ideas to nurture. We look forward to them for such support," said Balachandran.

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