Building successful commercial enterprises based on deep science is extremely hard and we know that. As an incubation center for deep science startups that has been in existence since 1991, we understand what it means to take an idea from inception all the way to the market.
We help entrepreneurial scientists achieve their goals!
We do this through our EIR and incubation programs. Our EIR and incubation programs are open to all (not restricted to IISc alumni) and help translate our mission of “Incubating IP based start-ups that commercialize science and technology for societal benefit.” into reality.
For companies that we incubate, we provide the following
Seed Capital: Our incubated companies get a seed capital as per prevailing SID norms.
IP/Patents: Startups can leverage Institute’ IP/Patents through the IPTel office and we help facilitate that.
Access to Labs: Apart from traditional departments in science and engineering, IISc has several inter-disciplinary centers of excellence. These include Center for Nano Science and Engineering (CeNSE), Dept of Computational and Data Sciences (CDS), Center for Biosystems Science and Engineering (BSSE) and many more. Specialized instruments/labs in these departments are made available to startups at a concessional rate.
Technical Mentoring: Technical mentoring by IISc faculty that helps startups in better designing their products.
Business Mentoring: We have a range of mentors who have a wealth of entrepreneurial and corporate experience to help and guide startups during their journey.
Access to IISc Alumni: IISc alumni are spread across the globe and most of them are in leadership position in various organizations worldwide. We can help startups leverage the invaluable power of alumni.
Academic Partnerships: We have academic partnership with IIM-Bangalore, IIT’s, IIIT-Bangalore and various other universities that startups can leverage
Corporate Partnership: We have partnered with organizations such as Social-Alpha, India Angel Network, Deep Science Fund etc that help startups in getting access to market, raise capital etc. In addition our relationship with AWS and Google Cloud help our start-ups in getting liberal Cloud credits.
Access to Learning: IISc offers a variety of continuing education programs, workshops, tutorials, MOOCs etc that the startups can leverage.
Medical Insurance Coverage: For all the employees and their families working at our startups
Programmes
STEM Innovation Entrepreneurship
We Incubate IP based start-ups that commercialize science and technology for societal benefit. We have a deep understanding and decades of experience of helping startups go from concept to commercial success. Our incubation services are open to all and are not restricted to IISc alumni only.
Faculty Entrepreneurship Program
IISc faculty who are interested in taking their own expertise to market are encouraged to do so through the Faculty Entrepreneurship program as per the applicable IISc policies.
Entrepreneur-in-Residence
The E-I-R program provides the opportunity to validate startup ideas, take them from lab to field, develop business plans etc. This is a structured program that results in a comprehensive incubation proposal that can be evaluated. The EIR program enables validation of a large number of ideas simultaneously without the overhead of setting up a company.
Incubation Process:
Incubation is a high risk activity and the percentage of start-up companies that successfully exit incubation and move to the next level is very small. The risk level is probably higher for start-ups that are based on yet-to-be-proven scientific ideas. Based on industry experience as well as its own prior experience, STEM Cell has in place a rigorous and repeatable process to evaluate entrepreneurs and business ideas.
The following parameters are evaluated:
- Entrepreneurial Team
- Customer Problem Definition
- Technology and Intellectual Property
- Competitive Landscape
- Markets
- Business Model
- Financials
- Societal Impact etc.
The proposal evaluation team consists of:
- Core Team of SID
- Faculty from IISc and other academic institutions
- Domain Experts from Industry
- Financial and Legal experts
- Partner Organizations, as needed
Meet Our Incubatees
If you are passionate about science and entrepreneurship and excited about what you have read here and want to do your own Deep Science based start-up, send in your business plan to: C.S. Murali (muralic@iisc.ac.in), Chairman, Entrepreneurship Center.