Entrepreneurial bug bites students; startups rise

Angel funds, incubators are mentoring college students to become entrepreneurs

With entrepreneurship taking the country by storm, smart college students want to ride on the wave as early as possible, even before completing their graduation. And giving wings to their dreams are a host of incubators, angel funds and a number of others in the ecosystem that has opened its doors for such folks.

Be it TiE ( The Indus Entrepreneurs), CII Startupreneurs or IIT Alumni Clubs or Nasscom’s Million dollar start-up programme, there seems to be enough mentoring and fostering options available to grow a good business proposition in the city.

During the first half of financial year 2015, about 62 start-ups received VC funding close to the tune of $191 million.

The same number for FY14 was at 158 companies getting a sum of $367 million.

“It is encouraging to see many students in India daring to dream to give wings to their ideas and set up business ventures,” said Anupam Pahuja, GM technology – Asia-Pacific, PayPal, which has announced the opening of its Start Tank incubator for students.

“Through Start Tank, we aim to help them with the right kind of mentorship and guidance to enter the market right after graduation,” Mr Pahuja said.

The recently held Entrepreneurship Conclave at IIT-Madras saw varsity students pitching varied ideas including crowdfunding to support the underprivileged, 3D printing and distribution and ‘green garbage’ waste management.

However, the idea of ‘delivering logistics via drones’ and the one on ‘pushing dynamic ads into mobile games in place of the obtrusive banner ads’ won the PayPal challenge.

Fading entry barriers, easy fall-back options, ample mentoring and liberal parenting have given the FB-generation stronger wings to pursue their entrepreneurial dreams.

“There is a lot of social acceptance, lower risk levels, easy money and extensive support that is helping a lot of people to try out entrepreneurship,” said R. Ramaraj, a serial entrepreneur and senior advisor of Sequoia Capital India.

Also, failed entrepreneurs are becoming a natural recruitment choice for many companies who value their experience.

However, a lot more needs to be done, he said, “If you look at the Angel List (a website for startups and investors) in the US, it will have 15,000 startup companies listed against 17,000 investors. That is the kind of environment we need to boost entrepreneurship - more investors than companies,” he added.