The vision of IIMB explicitly mentions Entrepreneurship as one of the key key areas of focus. Many years ago, the institute had identified this as a driving force of the Indian economy and had drawn out a mandate to improve the entrepreneurial ecosystem in India. IIMB is the first IIM to have an area dedicated to entrepreneurship and offer a Ph.D. program in this area. One of the main vehicles to execute this vision has been NSRCEL.
Entrepreneurship is synonymous with NSRCEL at IIM Bangalore. Founded in 2002 by one of the seven founders of Infosys, Mr. N S Raghavan, the center of excellence was set up by IIMB as one of the first incubators of India to nurture early stage ventures. In 2017, it was selected by NITI Aayog’s Atal innovation Mission as the top 10 incubators in India. Apart from angel funding, start-up entrepreneurs had a critical need for mentoring on business aspects and also needed a network of the right connections to take their ideas forward.
Since its inception, NSRCEL has incubated over 125 companies and pre-incubated over 450 ventures which has created over 5400 direct jobs with a combined value of over a $1.5 billion dollars in value.
As part of the expansion plans focused on nurturing Women Entrepreneurs, it will be working with over 100 incubated women entrepreneurs partnering with Goldman Sachs and the Department of Science and Technology (DST). NSRCEL Social Programme backed by Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, Mphasis and Ford Foundation that begun in 2017 makes us one of the first social incubators in India.
NSRCEL has incubated over 10 engineering student lead ventures with support from Texas Instruments and The Department of Science and Technology.
NSRCEL has been the pioneer in nurturing early stage ventures and with our history we believe in adding to the entrepreneurship ecosystem and helping budding entrepreneurs and other incubators in nurturing startups in India.