Tamil Nadu’s startup conundrum: Why the state has failed to create a startup ecosystem

I used to volunteer with local Tansim team (a semi-autonomous society) before the whole StartupTN reorganisation. They were doing small but relevant stuff, given their size. In the first year, they ran a competition to give 5L to 5 startups called TNIGC. Then scaled to 5L for 10 startups, and now 10L to 20 startups. They were more concerned about increasing the quality of startups that are getting funded. They ran some very good workshops with well known founder names to help them understand about entrepreneurship. They were conscious that if the award money is very high, say 25L it's likely to be hijacked by rent seeking behaviour.

They also ran interesting incubator training programs, student training sessions, etc.

Given 2-3 yrs more, that team could have accomplished more. But good things don't last. They were later disbanded and the organisation was rebranded to StartupTN with entire IAS board as the head of the organisation.

/r/Chennai Thread Link - thenewsminute.com