26-04-2025
A startup every third day: IIT Madras sets new record with 104 ventures in 2024–25
In a great stride towards innovation, the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) has, for the first time, incubated over 100 startups in a single financial year. This feat fulfils the 'Startup 100 Mission' set by Director Professor V Kamakoti at the start of the combined labour of the IIT Madras Incubation Cell (IITMIC) and the School of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, 104 startups were nurtured during 2024– more than half of these new ventures were founded by members of the IIT Madras community - its faculty, staff, students, and alumni. The remaining portion came from external entrepreneurs, reflecting the strength and openness of the institute's startup ecosystem.
Professor Kamakoti made the formal announcement during the World IP Celebrations on 26 April 2025, where key members of the innovation effort were also shared that IIT Madras had filed 417 patents this year - a remarkable pace of more than one patent per startups are working across important deep-tech sectors, such as manufacturing, robotics, automotive materials, defence, aerospace, health tech, space, pharma, and quantum technologies.
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Leaders of young companies like Inbound Aerospace and Matterize praised the unwavering support and mentorship they received from IITMIC, which helped shape their ventures from early ideas to thriving Prabhu Rajagopal, head of the School of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, reflected on how what once seemed an impossible goal was now achieved through systematic support for translational research. Meanwhile, Dr Tamaswati Ghosh, CEO of IITMIC, highlighted the rise from an average of 60 startups a year to this historic the past 12 years, IIT Madras has built a powerful deep-tech startup ecosystem, now boasting 457 startups with a collective value above Rs 50,000 crores, two unicorns, and many more successes on the Watch
