The Centre for Research on Startups and Risk Financing (CREST), an Institute of Eminence Research Centre at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT-M) has developed India’s first information platform on incubators and accelerators.

The platform, developed in partnership with YNOS, an IIT Madras-incubated startup, contains comprehensive information on incubators and accelerators, which play an important role in helping startups navigate an uncertain entrepreneurial ecosystem.

While India had about 1,000 active incubators, until now, the information about them was scattered and not easily available in a single location. Entrepreneurs had to spend a lot of time and effort to identify the incubator most suitable for their startup.

The platform developed by CREST addresses this pain-point and helps the startup founders to identify, compare and analyse incubators very easily. Called ‘Incubators’, this artificial intelligence (AI)-powered platform will help startup founders to identify incubators and accelerators across India and shortlist one that best fits their requirements.

Dr Jayesh Ranjan, IAS, Principal Secretary, Departments of Information Technology, Electronics and Communications, Industries and Commerce, Government of Telangana, and Member, Board of Directors of T-Hub, the largest incubator in India, formally launched the ‘Incubators’ platform at Hyderabad recently in the presence of Prof. Thillai Rajan, A., Professor at the Department of Management Studies, IIT Madras, and Principal Investigator of CREST. Prof. Thillai Rajan is also the Founder and Director of YNOS Venture Engine.

The incubators platform include data on more than 920 incubators and accelerators, with comprehensive information on each incubator such as host organisation, startup funding agency, number of startups supported, investors who have invested in the startups supported by the incubators, among others.