Startups should scale up: Kris Gopalakrishnan

“We need our own Facebook and Google. The startups should scale up and become household names and change the face of he state, said Kris

Gopalakrishnan, executive co-chairman and co-founder, Infosys.

He was distributing certificates to the top 20 startups for 2012 at the Startup Village, Kinfra Park, Kalamassery, on Friday.

He said that the village is a new avenue for the youth to become entrepreneurs and job creators. But the ventures cannot materialise   without the support of society and the stakeholders. Since its inauguration in April,  the 5,000 sq ft space has been increased to 10,000 sq ft. Soon it will grow up to 1 lakh sq ft and incubate 1,000 start ups. To nurture and execute big ideas and passion, the entrepreneurs need infrastructure, finance, funding and mentoring. A large number of partners have to be attracted, he said.

“In the near future, each startup will come up  with solutions, products, new ideas, jobs and change the environment of the state,” he said.

Jai Menon, group CIO of Bharti Enterprises also spoke.

Kris distributed certificates to 20 top startups in three categories. Out of the 450 applications, 148-odd startups are being supported at the Village.

The top 10 startups are Backbench Studios, iTraveller, Mindhelix, Cloudex Healthcare Private Limited, Finahub, YummyBay, Asimov Robotics, Mashinga, nwplyng and TagNPin. Mindhelix which has incubated in the village has found a place in the third batch of he Alchemist Accelerator programme in San Francisco which will start on January 3.

The top five student startups are HEDcet, STAD, Bluebag, QEdge and Dionz.

The top five stealth mode startups (their products are yet to be launched) are Kloudpad-MeMMoo, Wowmakers, Profoundis, Riafy and Sastra Systems.