IIT Madras Incubation Cell sees increase in faculty joining startups

The research activities and being part of a startup as a mentor or director are not two opposing work operations

There is an increasing interest among the academic faculty members to join the startups, especially those which are connected to the incubation cells of the institutes. 

Five years back, about 15 IIT Madras (IITM) faculty members were involved in startups as founders or advisor/minority shareholders or mentors. It has grown up to over 60 faculty members directly involved in startups incubated at IIT Madras.

Roughly 33 per cent of the total portfolio of 150 deep-tech startups established at IITM Incubation Cell have IITM faculty members as founders or are involved as minority shareholders, said Tamaswati Ghosh, CEO of the Incubation