The Manipal Universal Technology Business Incubator (MUTBI) of Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE) has supported 30 start-ups in various domains till now.

Speaking at a webinar, jointly organised by MAHE and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) on Wednesday, Srihari Upadhyaya, Chief Executive Officer of MUTBI, said that the incubator mainly supports technology development and aims at fostering entrepreneurship.

Stating that the facility is open to students, faculty, alumni and others, he said the thrust areas of MUTBI include information technology, healthcare, renewable energy, nanotechnology and medical devices.

MUTBI, which has supported 30 start-ups till now, has received ₹5 crore in grants from various government institutes, and around ₹6 crore from MAHE. Start-ups have raised funds to the tune of ₹8 crore, he said.

MUTBI has several facilities for carrying out pre-incubation and incubation-related activities. At incubation, it provides seed support through the fund from the National Science and Technology Development Board for product development, commercialisation and scaling up, he said.

HS Ballal, Pro-Chancellor of MAHE, said that as an academic and research institute, MAHE runs 350 programmes in 31 disciplines.

In addition to teaching, MAHE gives importance to inter-disciplinary research as it has the advantage of multiple disciplines on the campus.

Stating that MAHE promotes innovation and research by its faculty, researchers and students, he said it has set up MUTBI and a bio-incubator to meet this goal.

Both the incubators are promoting entrepreneurs, and many start-ups are working on products devised and developed in the areas of healthcare and technology.

Ballal said that some of the technologies are in advanced stages of development, and in need of corporate partnership for further development, manufacturing and marketing.

Stating that the Covid-19 pandemic has pushed several companies to look for new business opportunities, he said, MAHE decided to showcase its technologies through the webinar to reach out to interested partners. Some of the technologies being showcased will be of commercial interest, he said.

Manesh Thomas, CEO of Bio-incubator, said that it is a joint initiative by MAHE and the Karnataka government under the MUTBI Society. Established in January 2019, the bio-incubator focuses on the areas of biopharma, biomedical devices, healthcare and diagnostics, dental innovations and biotechnology.

He said 11 incubatees and two pre-incubatees are working on various domains at the bio-incubator now.

Various start-ups from these two incubators showcased their products at the webinar.

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