Top startup incubators in India

Is the startup accelerator bubble ready to burst in India?

That’s the question several VCs, entrepreneurs and early to late stage investors have started asking in the country’s fledgling startup ecosystem. Their concerns don’t look unfounded, especially after India’s oldest startup accelerator, The Morpheus, said it’s planning to move away from the existing model, and even stopped taking applications for next batches.

Founded by Sameer Guglani and Nandini Hirianniah in 2008, Morpheus is shifting away from incubating startups over 4-month long batches. It will now work with startups that are anywhere between 2-5 years old, or even up to 10 years in existence.

Last year, The Hatch, an 18-months old accelerator in Mumbai, shut down fueling speculations about the uncertain future faced by many startup accelerators in the country.

Guglani told me that Morpheus is not shutting down completely as is being speculated.

“We’ve been feeling the need to evolve and it could involve fading away the current accelerator model. We would be launching a new avatar, ” he said.

Founders these days are a lot more mature when they get started. Also a 0-2 year old startup has many good sources of support / advice & money. Lots of accelerators, incubators, hackathons, events, demo pitches, blogs, videos and a lot more.

Indeed, for entrepreneurs, it’s better to build their startups outside incubators if a longer gestation period is what it takes. Amarpreet Kalkat, who graduated from Microsoft Accelerator last year and founded big data startup Frrole, told me it’s getting tougher in India.

“An Indian startup would have a longer gestation period, so more time, and resources, are needed. My vote is for outside, because the battleplace is the market, how long can u keep fighting a proxy battle from inside a fenced garden, ” Kalkat said.

Morpheus’ journey so far, and its future path going forward offer crucial lessons for anybody looking to get involved with the Indian accelerator ecosystem.