Kerala has taken a major step to strengthen its deep tech startup landscape through a new partnership with Germany’s NXTGN Startup Factory of Baden Württemberg.
The Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM), the state government’s nodal agency for entrepreneurship development and incubation, has signed a collaboration to build a world class ecosystem for deep tech startups. The partnership will focus on technology access, product development, mentorship and innovation support.
NXTGN Startup Factory is a consortium of leading German universities, backed by corporate partners and a venture capital fund support of nearly ₹10,000 crore. Explaining the intent of the collaboration, Anoop Ambika, CEO of KSUM, said, “This consortium of universities has lot of advanced research IP lying with them. The idea is to see if we can access it through our collaboration and let our startups refine that IP through use cases”.
Ambika pointed out that India has strong capabilities in application level development, while Germany excels in basic research. He said, “Let’s say give me the technology, lets create a startup, you take equity in that startup, lets refurbish this research and take it to a next technology readiness level TRL level and let there be some use cases”. Highlighting the market potential, he added, “India is a huge market and Germans are very good at material science. So let’s create something which is of value. India can be a great market. That is the opportunity that I see. So, on one side you have IP, capital and corporate association, and this side we have talent, and market. It is knowledge collaboration”.
As part of the initiative, KSUM has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany. The MoU aims to support the creation of around 300 startups across Germany and Kerala, with access to funding and other support for deep tech ventures.
A steering committee and a dedicated working group will be set up with participation from the government, the Kerala startup ecosystem and the German startup ecosystem to drive the collaboration forward.
An important focus area of the partnership is building a sustainable talent pipeline from premier institutions and colleges in Kerala. This is expected to drive innovation, reshape the state’s industrial ecosystem and generate significant employment opportunities.
Kerala currently has nearly 15,000 registered startups, of which 7,600 are recognised by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade.
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