IIM-K, Cochin Shipyard award ₹1.8-crore seed funding to six start-ups 

IIM-K LIVE, the business incubator of the Indian Institute of Management-Kozhikode (IIM-K), in collaboration with Cochin Shipyard Limited (CSL) has sanctioned ₹1.8 crore in seed funding for six promising early-stage start-ups under the USHUS initiative, India’s flagship maritime sector start-up support scheme.

The six start-ups selected for funding are Wroxai Pvt. Ltd., Coimbatore; Hyetron Energy Pvt. Ltd., Chennai; EyDelta Pvt. Ltd., Bihar; Xtent Innovations Pvt. Ltd., Calicut; Mafkin Robotics Pvt. Ltd., Jaipur, and Xera Robotics Pvt. Ltd., Chennai, a press release said here on Monday.

With this round, a total of ₹4.4 crore has been sanctioned under the USHUS programme to support 14 start-ups, of which ₹2.1 crore has already been disbursed to eight start-ups.

The seed-funding award ceremony was held in the presence of senior representatives from CSL and IIM-K LIVE, including Prof. Ashutosh Sarkar, Executive Director, IIM-K LIVE, and Dr. Krishna Prasad S. (senior manager), Harikishen E.S. and Bindu Krishna (assistant general managers) from CSL.

Expressing delight over the development, Prof. Debashis Chatterjee, Chairman, IIM-K LIVE, and Director, IIM-K, said, “We believe that India’s maritime legacy must be reimagined through entrepreneurial innovation. USHUS exemplifies how academia and industry can co-create platforms that nurture young ventures with both purpose and potential.”

Madhu S. Nair, chairman and managing director, CSL, said: “The USHUS programme of CSL has, so far, generated over 70 high-skilled employment opportunities for talented young professionals and is playing a significant role in indigenising scalable sunrise technologies.”

A joint initiative of IIM-K LIVE and CSL, USHUS was launched to foster an innovation-friendly ecosystem in India’s maritime sector.