Mapping of Indian University based Business Incubation Ecosystem – Analysis of Gaps

Abstract

India has always been a land of business and trade. With changing political, legal, and economic factors, business incubators have been established to stimulate new business creation. Business incubators work as helping hand for the early stage companies by providing them necessary support, financial, and technical services. They are designed to accelerate the success and growth of entrepreneurial companies. Within the incubation space, we find the emergence of a new type of incubators – the university business incubators (UBIs). Not much research exists about them, especially from an Indian context. In our study, we created a list of Indian UBIs from existing incubator list and divided it into two phases. In phase I, we created a typology of Indian UBIs which would help us in better understanding their array of services. Also, we mapped the various attributes of UBIs to understand the emerging trend of their services. In phase II, we dug deep into our data to connect with selected incubators and incubatees, trying to understand which services are availed and what bottlenecks are faced. Thus, the study develops a typology of Indian UBIs and analyses the trend of their services provided over the zones of India. The paper aims to benefit entrepreneurs, incubators, partnering agencies, and the government in better policymaking.