IIM Kozhikode Organises ‘Start-O-Sphere’ 2020

IIM Kozhikode organised ‘Start-O-Sphere’ 2020, the 5th edition of Annual National Investor Start-up Meet. The event was organised by the IIMK E-Cell with the help of IIMK Live, a business incubator of the institute. ‘Start-O-Sphere’ 2020 which was organised on Feb 01, 2020 and Feb 02, 2020, achieved great success with many allied activities such as Bouncer – the idea validation event, movie screenings, Entrepreneurial Workshop, panel discussion. The event was organised to guide the students and startup enthusiasts so that they can understand the nitty-gritty of starting up. The event provided a chance for them to transform their ideas into a business model.

' Start-O-Sphere ' 2020 earned 457 start-up registrations from across the country and from a variety of industries, including education, manufacturing, wellness and fintech. A total of 40 startups were invited to attend the campus summit and present their ideas to the IIMK community. A group of 15 investors including Sparsh Kumar from Unicorn VC, Arjun Rao from Speciale Invest, Vinay Bansal from IP Ventures, Vinod Keni from Artha Ventures and Vatsal Kanakiya from 100x VC was selected to evaluate the 40 selected startups. All the startups were reviewed on the basis of different parameters including execution ability, quality of the team and unit margins. They also shortlisted ten start-ups for final assessment to be selected for prospective investment. As a result, 42 agreements have been initiated, 97 links have been made and 58 mentoring plans have been established.

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The Director of IIMK, Prof. Debashis Chatterjee said that every year, the student community at IIM Kozhikode gathers to celebrate the spirit of entrepreneurship and creativity by creating a platform that aims to link start-ups with investors. Another key objective for the Start-O-Sphere is to make students more aware of the start-up environment. The students were able to link their classroom lessons to the real-world experience of the startup founders of creating a business from the ground up, something that IIMK believes in. Professor Keyoor Purani, the Faculty Coordinator for E-Cell, said,' Start O Sphere' does not only aim to bring together emerging investors and start-ups but also aims to evangelise entrepreneurship between the student community on campus and the wider community in Kerala.

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As part of the event, E-Cell also had a series of speakers and panel discussions. Among them, Mr Sparsh Kumar from Unicorn VC, Mr Vinay Bansal from IP Ventures, Mr Vinod Keni of Artha Ventures on ‘Idea Validation’, Ms Nidhi Saraf, founder and CEO at Key Venture were the prominent speakers and panellists. Another highlight of the event was the concept validation event, ' Bouncer, ' where aspiring startups were allowed to support their ideas by IIM Kozhikode professors. A detailed workshop on Ideation, MVP, Marketing and Fundraising was also organised by IIMB alumnus, Harinath Pudipeddi and Co-Founder of Headstart, with 14 + years of experience in health technology.