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ACADEMICIAN ENTREPRENEURS
From
Labs to Markets
Academics
and entrepreneurship are slowly joining forces in India, with a number of
startups that identify market needs and commercialise their research
appearing on the entrepreneurial landscape
Unlike in the West—where academic research has
close links with industry—the brightest minds in India have tended to bury
themselves inside laboratories, ignorant of the pulls and pressures of the
market. But thanks to a series of new emerging businesses founded and run
by Indian academics, the tide may just turn now. A small, but growing,
number of startups that identify market needs and commercialise their
research have appeared on the Indian entrepreneurial landscape. These are
spread across sectors—from life sciences and energy efficiency to education
services. “Compared to the West, the ecosystem here has not really allowed
academia to play a stronger role in fostering entrepreneurship,” said
Ashwin Raguraman, chief operating officer at the 100-crore India Innovation
Fund, a venture capital fund that invests in innovation-led, early-stage
Indian firms. “They continue to face peer pressure, which has, perhaps,
constrained commercialisation of their research.” It’s a chasm that
academics Vijay Chandru, Rajendra Sonar and Shashikanth Suryanarayanan are
hoping to bridge. “The company is an extension of my academic pursuits.
What is the point of confining your research to the laboratory?” said
Rajendra Sonar of iKen Solutions, who is testing the commercial value of
his research in Asia’s third-largest economy. “You have to find ways to
unlock its value.” His firm iKen Solutions, incubated in Indian Institute
of Technology-Bombay in 2008, has developed a hybrid artificial
intelligence product that can be used to understand a consumer’s online
purchase behaviour. While Sonar continues to be a faculty member at IIT
Bombay’s SJM School of Management, the day-to-day running of the venture is
looked after by a professional chief executive Siddharth Goel—similar to
the model followed in the United States. Another company founded by a
professor-turned-entrepreneur is Pune-based Sedemac Mechatronics, started
in 2008 by IIT-Bombay mechanical engineer professor Shashikanth
Suryanarayanan when he was leading a research group. “This is not
everybody’s cup of tea,” said Suryanarayanan. “You have to be an
entrepreneur and be able to sell a dream to different people.” What started
as a small lab-based enterprise in the IIT Bombay campus has now grown into
a company that supplies unique control products to leading engine
manufacturers, such as Mahindra & Mahindra, Kirloskar Group, TVS Motors
and Tata Motors. The company has developed engine and powertrain control
products that deliver fuel efficiency or increase performance. “Solutions
that can be monetised are coming out of research labs in India. And as an
investor that’s what I’m looking for,” India Innovation Fund’s Raguraman
said. One of the first such ventures is Bangalore-based bioinformatics
company Strand Life Sciences. Founded in 2000 by professors at Indian
Institute of Science, the company conducts several precision DNA tests to
identify genetic mutations through its proprietary software. “Our game-plan
at the time of creating the company was to create the Google of genomics,”
said Vijay Chandru, chief executive at Strand Life Sciences. Currently,
Strand’s tools are being used by 2,000 laboratories all across the world,
including Karolinska Institute in Sweden—one of Europe’s largest medical
universities—and America’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which is
focused on nuclear and basic science. Earlier this year in February,
diversified global financial advisory firm Burrill and Co invested an
undisclosed amount in the company, the proceeds from which will go towards
Strand’s expansion into global markets as well as consolidate its position
in precision diagnostics in the healthcare space. “Interaction between
industry and academia in the US is constant, unlike here in India. We need
collaborative effort,” said Krishna Tanuku, executive director at Wadhwani
Centre for Entrepreneurship Development at the Indian School of Business,
Hyderabad. But the consensus remains that there has to be significant shift
in mind-set. Not just from academia’s point of view, but also in the way
the other stakeholders, including venture capital, look to stimulate
entrepreneurship in India. “Indian academics have to take more risk. There
has to be more inter-disciplinary research. You have to look at working
sideways. Stop being in a silo. There is a very vibrant local market here,
but one has to take advantage of it,” Chandru said. Vinay Viswanathan,
founder and chairman at LimberLink Technologies, said there are very few
funds that actively look to market research in India. “Even though we cater
to the domestic market, we still need money. The risk taking ability is
absent from both sides. The role played by India’s premier academic
institutions in fostering entrepreneurship is also under scrutiny. “In the
US, academics are also involved in creating their own ventures…I don’t
think there are too many examples of that in India. So, how do you expect
them to convince students to go down the entrepreneurial road?” pointed out
Amit Kapoor, chairman of Gurgaon-based think-tank Institute of Competitiveness.
“In the end, we are all socialists trying to teach capitalism.”
When Academics Walk the Talk
Greater credibility regarding the product
A number of emerging technologies require greater academic rigour –
4G technology, wireless technology
Product tends to have a better mix of economic value and
sustainability
Academia-led entrepreneurial ventures tend to conform better to
pressures of timelines
Ventures tend to have more seamless transfer of technology Leading
Startups Founded by Indian Academics
STRAND LIFE SCIENCES
Founded in: 2000 Current revenue: undisclosed Target revenue: 100
crore by FY 2015
Strand works in areas of computational chemistry, predictive modeling and
bio-informatics relating to the human genome project IKEN SOLUTIONS
Founded in: 2008
Target profitability in FY 2014
Incubated in IIT Bombay, iKen Solutions works in the areas of hybrid
artificial intelligence, and has been backed by venture capital funds,
including, India Innovation Fund LIMBERLINK TECHNOLOGIES
Founded in: 2010
Target revenue: 2 crore by FY 2014
Founded by IISC professors and backed by Accel Partners, LimberLink has
created the JED-I programme, which provides engineering students an
out-of-classroom, beyond-curriculum training in core engineering
Academics Who Changed the World
David Cheriton
Stanford University
Cut a cheque for $100,000 to a
pair of Stanford Ph.D students, namely, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. The
investment is now valued at over $1 billion
Eric Fossum
Dartmouth University
Invented the CMOS Active Pixel
Image Sensor, which is now used in practically every cell-phone camera,
medical imaging systems and webcams
Robert Morris
MIT
Co-founded the world’s prominent
startup accelerator Y Combinator, which has gone on to seed leading
internet ventures globally, such as Scribd and Reddit
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