Coast Of Opportunity

Kochi has been a city of many firsts for startups, and a proactive Kerala government is building on the momentum

- Naandika Tripathi

It was familiarity that drew Rajith Nair back to Kochi. When the IT professional relocated to his hometown in Kerala from Bengaluru in 2007, he was also relieved that his four-hour commute was reduced to less than 30 minutes. Seven years later, when he decided to turn entrepreneur along with Prashanth Thankappan, his colleague at Wipro Technologies, Nair was pleasantly surprised to note that Kochi not only provided him the comfort of home, but also the support system to start up with immense ease.

Nair is the co-founder of Inntot Technologies, a software-defined radio (SDR) startup that develops solutions to change the way people consume radio content. It develops software solutions to negate the use of specialised hardware chipsets, reducing the cost of digital radio receivers for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). The venture— which received pre-series-A funding from Unicorn India Venture—aims to enable cost-effective next-generation digital radio transmission.

As part of the Kerala Serial Entrepreneur Development Scheme and other state-led initiatives, Inntot received an interest-free loan of 20 lakh from the Kerala Financial Corporation (KFC). The startup was provided working space in the state-established Infopark at a highly subsidised rate. Nair and Thankappan received full reimbursements for the two patents they filed, and the government also provided them financial support to participate in international trade events. “We benefitted immensely from the Kerala government’s attempts to transform the state’s startup ecosystem,” says Nair, who has a master’s degree in computer science and engineering from IIT Madras and quit his 15-year-long corporate career to turn first-time entrepreneur.