Keralam govt. to transform start-up mission to a ‘scale-up mission’, says Chief Minister V.D. Satheesan

Chief Minister V.D. Satheesan at the Huddle Global 2026 in Kovalam, Thiruvananthapuram.

Signalling a shift in approach regarding start-ups in Keralam, Chief Minister V.D. Satheesan said the government’s focus will be to transform the start-up mission to a scale-up mission. He was speaking after inaugurating the eighth edition of the three-day Huddle Global 2026, organised by the Kerala State Startup Mission at Kovalam here on Thursday.

He said that Keralam became the first State in India to adopt a structured approach to technology entrepreneurship through the technology start-up policy of 2014. The fire that was lit back then has spread with the start-up ecosystem in the State now growing to 9,200 start-ups, employing over 76,000 people.

“The world does not judge an ecosystem by how many start-ups it has, but by how many succeed. We need to have a major shift from quantity to quality. We have been encouraging more innovators to become entrepreneurs. In the future, increased focus will be on providing them deeper support so that they succeed. The next phase of the journey needs sufficient funding, mentorship and institutional support. The government is deeply committed to provide support to the ecosystem. We need to have more than 100 start-ups with ₹100 crore revenue. Such success stories will in turn motivate more entrepreneurs,” he said.

The government will be setting up a consortium of State agencies like Kerala Financial Corporation (KFC), Kerala State Industrial Development Corporation (KSIDC) and investment banks to ensure that start-ups receive required funds to translate ideas into products and scale them up on global scale, he said. The State government’s transformative initiatives like Mission Samudra and Silver Economy could be correlated with the innovation ecosystem, opening plenty of opportunities to start-ups, the Chief Minister added.

“We have already accorded sanction to set up 10 research-driven incubators through the Translational Research and Innovation Centre-Kerala (TRIC-K). Through this we will strengthen the incubation network across the State and we will create world-class incubators each in an institution that already leads in one technology,” Mr. Satheesan said.

Delivering the key-note address to the opening session of the three-day event organised by Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM), P.K. Kunhalikutty, Minister for Industries, IT, Future Technology and Start-ups, said the government’s vision is to develop Keralam into a global destination of investment and entrepreneurship.

Delivering a special address to the event, Sophie Karlshausen, Ambassador at Embassy of Belgium, noted that the partnership between Keralam’s start-up ecosystem and the European innovation zone is bound to grow further. The Keralam-based start-ups, on account of their ideas and talent, are most ideally suited to benefit from various European projects, she added.