This year, marks the beginning of the exponential phase of growth for Venture Center. For the past 10 years, during the decade long journey of our existence, we have worked hard through many ups and downs as we strive to establish an ecosystem that nurtures and encourages technology and knowledge-based enterprises.
Calendar year 2017 was a remarkable year for Venture Center. During the year we strengthened our pre-incubation activities via Entrepreneur In Residence (EIR) and PRAYAS programs from DST – NIDHI, SIIP program of DBT-BIRAC as well as Proof of Concept funds raised as CSR funds. Currently, 24 early stage entrepreneurs are part of these early stage incubation activities and are receiving funding and mentoring support at Venture Center. Apart from this additional biology/ life sciences labs as part of BioIncubator Phase2 activities and instrumentation facilities such as Tinkering lab (Optics and Electronics facility supported by DBT-BIRAC) and Prayashala (prototyping facility supported by DST-NSTEDB) were set up.
Looking ahead, Venture Center hopes to develop several new facilities and activities in the coming year starting with Center of Excellence funded by DST – NIDHI. We also plan to significantly strengthen our mentoring activities in investment, fund raising and scale up support for our start-ups. We are also looking forward to energizing the campus and ecosystem by supporting and mentoring several young entrepreneurs and engaging with corporate entities via new CSR programs.
Finally, we would like to thank all the funding agencies, well wishers and all of you for the support to this collective initiative in innovation and entrepreneurship eco-system development we call Venture Center!
In this issue of the newsletter, you can read about
(a) An overview of Venture Center’s Efforts towards a sustainable world
(d) Event highlights
(e) Venture Center stories in the media
