IIT Madras & YNOS: Empowering Start-ups with Government Funding Intelligence Platform

New Delhi, 26 October 2023: Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) researchers at the Centre for Research on Start-ups and Risk Financing (CREST) have developed an ‘Intelligence Platform on Government Funding Schemes for Start-ups’ to boost the start-up sector.

Developed and implemented in partnership with YNOS, an IIT Madras-incubated start-up, the platform brings together the entire spectrum of start-up schemes from the government to the doorsteps of the entrepreneur. It has been developed based on several years of research and data collected by a team led by Prof. Thillai Rajan, Principal Investigator of CREST, and faculty, Department of Management Studies, IIT Madras.

The portal is designed to help entrepreneurs get a comprehensive understanding of the government funding landscape for start-ups. It integrates information on the various central government schemes, central public sector companies, and also that of various state governments. There are more than 100 different schemes by different agencies.

Launching the platform, Amitabh Kant, India’s G20 Sherpa, noted that it also provides detailed analytics such as the start-ups that have benefitted from the scheme, average financial investment received, age of the start-up at the time of getting funded, number of founders in the start-up and the age of founders at the time of getting financial support. “Prominently showcasing the start-ups that have received government support, also helps to get the attention of private sector investors such as Angels and VCs, for subsequent funding. Consolidating information of all government schemes helps to communicate the aggregate impact of these schemes in a very powerful manner.”

Among other things, the platform also gives the contact details and the social media links of the respective schemes and it will be possible for the entrepreneur to download detailed reports on every scheme.

Speaking on the occasion, Prof. Thillai Rajan said  that the motivation for developing the platform was driven by the information challenges faced by entrepreneurs and other stakeholders of the Indian start-up ecosystem. “Information was scattered, not easily accessible and did not address the needs of the stakeholders”.

The Government of India launched the Start-up India initiative in 2016. This has been a very unique initiative with a high  level of policy convergence and contribution from multiple departments and ministries. This has resulted in India becoming one of the largest start-up ecosystems globally.