Chennai: Four students’ startups were given Rs 2.5 lakh each for prototype development and market validation of their products by SRM Innovation and Incubation Centre (SIIC), a technology and business incubation arm of SRM Institute of Science and Technology.

According to a press release, the grants for these teams were distributed during the advisory board meeting held recently. SRM Vice-Chancellor Sandeep Sancheti handed over the grant cheques to students startups.

SIIC is running the NewGen Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development Centre (IEDC), supported and funded by NSTEDB, DST, Government of India.

Currently, seven students and alumni companies are incubated in this centre and over 20 student startups are in the pre-incubation stage.

Through the institutional funding and DST funded NewGen IEDC, SRM will be providing seed grants to 10 student startups this year.

In the first quarter of 2019, 80 start-ups have applied for this funding support. The centre identified four students start-ups – Sure Local, Rizel Automotive, Monkwish and Mithril Energy for the seed funding of Rs 2.5 lakh each. Along with this, a faculty startup, StemOnc, working on development of customised drugs for lung and colon cancer, were also given a grant of Rs 2.5 lakh by SIIC.

Furthermore, the centre is also open for students across other institutions to apply for seed grants for prototyping their innovative product ideas.