The CAMS IITM Fintech Innovation Lab (CIFIL) is a research initiative at IIT Madras that focuses on advancing Fintech capabilities through data driven tools and solutions. As part of the CIFIL Exploratory Grant in Fintech, this project aims to develop a quantitative model to estimate the valuation of early stage start ups, an essential requirement for fundraising. Traditional valuation methods rely on discounted cash flows, but these approaches are difficult to apply to early stage ventures due to limited financial history and unpredictable growth trajectories. To address this challenge, the study proposes a quantitative comparable company approach, where valuation is inferred by identifying similar start ups using machine learning techniques and benchmarking against their valuations. This model will leverage the comprehensive start up datasets available through the CREST information platform. The resulting valuation framework is envisioned as a practical tool to support start ups, investors, and ecosystem stakeholders, forming one component of CREST’s broader mission to enable sustainable growth and enhance value creation for emerging ventures.

CREST, in partnership with BIRAC, is developing a comprehensive digital dashboard that tracks, visualises, and showcases biotech start-ups across India. Building on CREST’s national platforms, including the VIBGYOR dashboard for the Ministry of Textiles and the ONE-INNOVATION framework for the Ministry of Education, the initiative consolidates dispersed information on start-ups, founders, investors, and funding into a unified system. IIT Madras and CREST continuously curate and enrich data from public sources and BIRAC’s portfolio, while engaging with relevant agencies to further strengthen the dataset. The evolving dashboard supports BIRAC in monitoring ecosystem developments, demonstrating program impact, enabling data-driven decision making, and offering greater visibility to stakeholders across start-ups, incubators, investors, and government bodies.

This social impact assessment focuses on companies engaged in diverse business activities, including direct and indirect defence-related sectors, and examines changes before and after receiving support under Exim Bank’s Ubharte Sitaare programme. The study continues to collect data through tailored questionnaires and virtual interactions with borrower companies, with Exim Bank facilitating the meetings. The information gathered is analysed across key parameters using a before-and-after comparison to understand progress attributable to the loan. A central feature of the work is the application of the Additionalities Framework, which helps isolate the incremental benefits directly resulting from the intervention and distinguishes them from outcomes driven by external factors. The research team is employing a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods, leveraging tools available at CREST to measure changes across financial, operational, and social dimensions. As the assessment progresses, findings are being consolidated into a detailed report for Exim Bank, supported by concise borrower-wise snapshots, offering both programme-level insights and company-specific outcomes.

The socio-economic impact assessment undertaken by CREST at IIT Madras evaluates the outcomes of projects supported under Exim Bank’s Grassroots Initiatives for Development (GRID) Programme. The study focuses on community-driven enterprises across diverse sectors including handloom, pottery, agriculture, and rural manufacturing, assessing both the tangible and intangible changes resulting from GRID interventions. Using a mixed-method approach, the assessment combines primary field-based insights with secondary institutional data to provide a comprehensive understanding of programme outcomes. Focus Group Discussions at project sites capture beneficiary experiences, community perspectives, and operational challenges, while direct engagement with project teams helps document capacity-building efforts, value chain development, and local innovation. These qualitative insights are triangulated with secondary evidence such as project reports and monitoring documents to analyse income enhancement, market access, skill development, export readiness and women’s participation. Together, these methods enable a before-and-after comparison of outcomes and support a robust evaluation of the effectiveness, efficiency, and long-term sustainability of GRID-supported interventions.

The Tamil Nadu State Planning Commission has proposed a comprehensive study to document the opportunities and challenges within the state's start-up ecosystem. The study aims to achieve multiple objectives. These include analysing the growth and potential opportunities for start-ups, identifying gaps in existing government initiatives, addressing challenges related to sustainability and scalability, promoting social inclusion, exploring the role of public procurement in driving economic growth, and ultimately contributing to Tamil Nadu's goal of becoming a trillion-dollar economy. Additionally, the study seeks to map best practices both within and outside the state to develop appropriate policy interventions. The research will employ a mixed-methods approach, leveraging primary and secondary data sources to provide comprehensive insights. An extensive secondary data review will be conducted to explore policies related to the Tamil Nadu start-up ecosystem and available opportunities. Data will be gathered from diverse sources, including the IIT Madras-YNOS Platform, StartupTN, academic journals, research reports, publications, and government documents. To gather nuanced insights, the study will conduct 500 face-to-face structured interviews with start-ups, focusing on understanding the challenges they face, the opportunities they identify, and the effectiveness of existing policies.

This report provides a snapshot of the start-up ecosystem in the state and was compiled using data from various secondary and primary sources. The secondary data was obtained from various policies and initiatives, articles, and websites that provide relevant information on the start-up ecosystem. StartupTN initiatives and relevant sector-specific policies have been studied in detail to understand their engagement with critical areas of support imperative for the success of a start-up. They include areas such as formation support, fiscal, regulatory, human capital, ease of doing business and so on. The exercise provides a comprehensive perspective of the state-initiated start-up schemes aligning with the mission of StartupIndia, as well as schemes targeting select industries with the intention to boost the relevant start-ups to meet national and global expectations. The analysis of the schemes launched between 2018 to 2022 was done extensively as they form the core of the StartupTN initiative. The main data for this research was obtained from two sources, namely YNOS Venture Engine and StartupTN for data on the start-up landscape, funding, revenue and asset generation. Furthermore, data related to employees was collected from start-ups through an online survey.

The Startup India initiative is envisioned to catalyse the start-up culture, with start-ups being recognized through the initiative and entrepreneurs availing the benefits of launching and conducting their own business in India with ease. In recent years, India has seen a steady increase in the number of start-ups incorporated, especially in sectors such as IT and ITES. The annual growth rate of start-ups as of early 2022 was around 15.5 percent. The number of registered start-ups grew from 223 in August 2016 to more than 83000 in December 2022. Several policy changes and new schemes have been introduced by 129 different ministries, to encourage and support start-ups. Government’s support is critical in providing the essential funding, mentorship, and market access support required by start-ups. In line with the same, MEITY’s start-up support programs contain various provisions to incentivise key start-up stakeholders such as incubators and institutions of higher education among others so as to promote holistic development for India’s start-up ecosystem. The objective of this study is to analyse the start-up landscape and understand the impact of the Start-up policy introduced by the National Government in 2016, with a specific focus on start-ups in digital technologies.

A typical valuation procedure of a startup involves an analysis of potential future cash flows, an analysis of comparative firms’ stock prices, or an analysis of the price-to-earnings ratio of the venture. The valuation of a new venture with significant growth opportunities, high uncertainty and no real cashflow using foggy discount rate estimations seem to defy all the common wisdom on growth firm valuation. Rather than anchoring the Risk-Return equation of such high-growth, high-uncertainty firms in some impassable plan, the study intends to conduct an empirical analysis of the risk and return profile of start-ups in the Indian scenario using a risk-neutral model and backing it up with the findings of the cascade neural network model. This would provide a systematic reference guide for entrepreneurs as well as risk capital investors in India.

Health Equity is the absence of unfair, avoidable, or remediable differences among groups of people, whether those groups are defined socially, economically, demographically, or geographically or by other dimensions of inequality (e.g., sex, gender, ethnicity, disability, or sexual orientation). It also requires attention to health inequities, which are differences in population health status and mortality rates that are systemic, patterned, unjust, and actionable, as opposed to random or caused by those who become ill. Health equity is an issue within all our countries and is affected significantly by the global economic and political system. Startups have unique capabilities such as revenue generation, poverty elevation, and strengthening the local economy, etc. that can help them achieve health equity. This proposed research focuses on how these startups and entrepreneurship can contribute to health equity and address inequities in health.

Over the past decade, student entrepreneurship has seen a successful evolution. Many higher educational institutions have recognized this potential and are actively imparting entrepreneurship knowledge to their students. The resulting success of these student startups has motivated a growing number of young people to pursue entrepreneurial ventures. This research delves deeper, investigating the factors that influence the success of student startups beyond just access to resources. It examines how student entrepreneurs’ socio- economic backgrounds, venture-specific characteristics, and traditional factors like market fit and team dynamics contribute to the varying success rates of early-stage student startups.