IIT-M Incubation Cell partners with NativeLead Foundation to nurture rural startups
- ByStartupStory | August 24, 2022
The IIT-M Incubation Cell has established a collaboration with NativeLead Foundation, India’s first angel-driven ecosystem dedicated to encouraging young minds in Tamil Nadu to become innovators and entrepreneurs. The collaboration intends to find, foster, and assist in the scaling up of start-ups from institutes and incubators, particularly in tier 2/3/4 cities — local entrepreneurs, address local concerns, and build solutions for broader impact.
According to a press release, the relationship is also linked to IITMIC’s 10X Accelerated Incubation effort, which aims to achieve an ambitious 1,000 incubations by 2030 by enabling young emerging entrepreneurs from India’s rural regions.
NativeLead Angels presently has six Tamil Nadu local chapters (Madurai, Coimbatore, Erode, Karur, Trichy, and Thoothukudi) and three Native Connect Chapters (Chennai,Washington DC and Tokyo). Their primary goal is to invest in and foster start-ups originating from Tamil Nadu’s rural towns.
IITMIC and NativeLead will collaborate to deliver value-added support such as mentorship, market access, and training to boost entrepreneurial ecosystems and accelerate the growth of incubated firms at IITMIC and its partner institutes/incubators across the state.
“Focus will be on areas such as (but not limited to) agritech, retail, healthtech, edutech, and cleantech, with a focus on social impact and ESG compliance,” according to the statement.
“There are so many businesses in rural corners that have fantastic concepts but lack technology competence,” said Nagaraja Prakasam, founder-chairman of NativeLead. We will find such startups and connect them with IITMIC. “The concept is to use technology to alleviate rural challenges.”
Ashok Jhunjhunwala, president of the IITM Incubation Cell, RTBI, and IIT Madras Research Park, said, “Rural entrepreneurs are very vital for India. They have the advantage of being able to discover locally tailored solutions to difficulties that are specific to India. This is an example of genuine indigenous ingenuity. Our objective is matched with NativeLead’s to enhance this start-up ecosystem and make it accessible to entrepreneurs in regional areas.”
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