Venture Center celebrates its 15th foundation year

New Delhi: Pune based Venture Center is marking its 15th anniversary this month. To celebrate this significant milestone, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)’s first and largest incubator, held a virtual event on December 18, 2021 to highlight the contribution of key stakeholders who have played a vital part in its journey into becoming India’s leading inventive enterprises incubator.

Venture Center has supported more than 600+ entrepreneurs across the country in the last 15 years. Several of these startups have launched first-of-its kind science-based products with large social impact.  More than 76 technologies have already been launched by Venture Center start-ups, and in FY2020-21 alone, there have been over 14 lakh beneficiaries of these startup technologies in sectors such as health, environment, and agriculture.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr Shekhar Mande, DG-CSIR talked about the importance of entrepreneurship in helping India’s youth contribute positively to India’s growth story, while creating tens of millions of jobs over the next decade. He also talked about the role of science-led entrepreneurship in making India an innovation country and the role of established incubators such as Venture Center.

Distinguished scientist,  Dr RA Mashelkar talked about how innovation should make a difference to society, and expressed his hope to see high science-led start-ups ride the current unicorn wave in the country. Dr Ashish Lele, Director, NCL spoke of the plans to double the capacity of Venture Center to serve startups  two folds within the next 3 years. He announced plans to build a new building to house many more startups. With that the NCL Innovation Park will be able to serve more than 150 residents startups and emerge as probably one of the biggest clusters of inventive enterprises in the country.

Reflecting on Venture Center’s 15 year journey at the event, Dr. Premnath, Director Venture Center said, “This is truly a milestone to celebrate. There are many reasons to be proud and many people to thank. The year 2006 was a very different world in India. The buzz around “startups” was still a whisper.  Building startups was not the trending career choice, and science-based startups were a rarity.  It was in this backdrop that Venture Center began an uphill journey to the peak and against the force of the wind like any other startup. Today, we can proudly say that we have delivered on a promise in significant measure and the future looks promising.”

Also present on the occasion were Dr S. Chandrashekhar, Secretary Department of Science and Technology (DST); distinguished scientist, Prof. Anil Gupta; and current and past Directors of CSIR-National Chemical Laboratory (NCL), Dr AK Lele, Dr AK Nangia, Dr K Vijayamohanan, Dr S Pal and Dr S Sivaram.