IIM Kozhikode and MRPL sign MoU to support innovative startups

Indian Institute of Management-Kozhikode (IIM-K) and Mangalore Refineries and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL) Monday signed a MoU to support innovative start-up ventures.

IIM-K LIVE (Laboratory for Innovation, Venturing, and Entrepreneurship) and MRPL believe that the partnership would leverage the individual strengths of the two public organizations to contribute to entrepreneurial ecosystem in line with start-up mission of the government of India, a press release from IIIM Kozhikode release said here Monday.

MRPL has launched its start-up fund and intends to nurture and fund new business ideas in collaboration with IIM-K LIVE, the release said. LIVE, set up in association with Department of Science Technology, already runs business incubation programme and would provide physical, intellectual and networking infrastructure to support start-up companies eligible for the MRPL grants, it said.

IIM-K director Debashis Chatterjee, hailing the partnership, was quoted as saying: "We welcome MRPL to join our efforts in building entrepreneurial and innovation ecosystems."

Apart from start-up support interventions, IIM-K is also exploring a wider relationship with MRPL in the areas of executive education and training, consulting, sector-specific research, conferences on issues of mutual interest to exchange the ideas, he said.

MRPL senior executives in-charge of start-up funding, including the group general manager Vinayakumar and chief general manager (R&D) V Nandakumar visited IIM-K campus last week to finalize the partnership.