Building Prolific Entrepreneurship Ecosystems:

Shared Lessons from India and ASEAN

Episode 1

Incubators as Catalysts for Innovation

Shailaja Shukla
Associate - Insight, CIIE.CO
Building Prolific Entrepreneurship Ecosystems:
Shared Lessons from India and ASEAN

Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank the speakers at the ERIA–CIIE.CO Roundtable Discussion Episode 1 ‘Incubators
as Catalysts of Innovation’, listed in alphabetical order:

Chintan Bakshi, Partner – Incubation, CIIE.CO, India; Mudit Narain, Technology Officer, Office of the Principal
Scientific Adviser to the Government of India; Michelle Ng, Senior Associate, Quest Ventures, Singapore; Mel
Nava, CEO, 1Export, Philippines; Chintan Vaishnav, Mission Director, Atal Innovation Mission, India.

The authors wish to thank all their colleagues who contributed to the success of the event, in particular the
ERIA Communications Team (Lydia Ruddy, Tyagita Silka Hapsari, Nadia Elsyafira, Isabella Italia Gentajaya, and
Dega Putra Wardhana), Jeremy Gross, Lina Maulidina Sabrina, Sheila Fathiya, Listi Irawati, Alay Phonvisay,
Penghuy Ngoy, and Minh Minh Tan, and the team at CIIE.CO - Snehil Basoya, Alisha Verghese, Niraj Mulani,
Varunika Lalchandani and Pinakeen Bhatt.

Giulia Ajmone Marsan, ERIA Director for Strategy and Partnership, supervised the preparation of this report,
which benefitted from comments by Giulia Ajmone Marsan, Lina Maulidina, and Supriya Sharma.

The authors would also like to thank the Australian Government for funding the series of ERIA–CIIE.CO
online dialogues.

Disclaimer

The Australian Government funded this report and the ERIA–CIIE.CO Roundtable Discussions through the
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors alone
and are not necessarily the views of ERIA or the Australian Government.
 Incubators as Catalysts for Innovation

Executive Summary
This report is part of a study that CIIE.CO, the Innovation Continuum, and Economic Research Institute of

ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA) are conducting to open collaboration and peer learning between India and the

Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and share knowledge and tools relevant to entrepreneurship

ecosystems in South Asia. It dives into the evolution of the incubation ecosystem in India and ASEAN and

presents a comparative analysis of some of the major policies. This report is based on the joint roundtable

held by CIIE.CO and ERIA on ‘Incubators as Catalysts for Innovation’, as well as previous research by both

organisations on incubators in their respective countries and/or regions.

Key Messages
The Indian startup ecosystem went through an evolution in three phases. Phase 1 began in the early

2000s with a focus on commercialisation of technology. Phase 2 came around 2008 when Internet

2.0 came into the picture, which shifted focus beyond research and towards tech startups. Phase

3 began in 2016, when the government developed the startup policy. The ecosystem has grown

multifold between 2016–2021 with more than 40 startups that reached a valuation of US$1 billion

(or unicorns) emerging only in 2021.

The innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem in Southeast Asia is maturing, as evidenced by the

increasing number of exits and a growing number of unicorns mainly in four ASEAN Member States:

five in Indonesia, four in Singapore, two in Viet Nam, and one in Malaysia (Ajmone Marsan, Sabrina,

and Jin, 2021). During 2023–2025, 700+ are expected to exit, mainly through mergers and acquisitions

and initial public offerings through the Special Purpose Acquisition Company. Even though countries

in Southeast Asia are at different stages of development, because of the maturing ecosystem, there

are also more venture capital and resources available in Southeast Asia.

Per Chintan Vaishnav of Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), ‘The innovation ecosystem in India is a

transducer with creativity as input and innovation and entrepreneurship as output.’

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 Building Prolific Entrepreneurship Ecosystems:
Shared Lessons from India and ASEAN

Where there is a lack of funding, there is a lot of innovation focused on solving bigger problems and

supporting local communities. There are examples of startups in rural areas that have thrived over

bigger brands in Southeast Asia because they are locally driven and focused on providing value to

their customers.

Funding agencies should consider the three Cs for incubation programmes:

1. Capital. There should be enough for the incubator to cover expenses, grow, and become

sustainable in the long run.

2. Connections. Incubators should be able to connect the entrepreneurs to the right people. The

incubation manager should be well-connected in their respective region.

3. Competency. To help and support startups, an incubator itself needs to have certain

competencies and expertise, especially in operational areas such as human resources,

compliances.

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 Incubators as Catalysts for Innovation

INTRODUCTION
In 2020, India was home to over 50,000 startups, with an expected annual growth rate of over 12%

(Startup India, n.d). According to the National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM),

India is home to over 350 incubators and accelerators, covering about 100 cities, with this number set to

increase exponentially in the coming years (NASSCOM, 2020). A 2017 NASSCOM study placed India third

globally in terms of the number of incubators. However, India is far behind the leaders, with China having

over 2,400 incubators and the United States (US) having over 1,500 incubators.

In the same year, ASEAN released a guideline for creating an enabling environment for the region’s

startups ecosystem. In 2018, at least 5,800 active startups were operating across all major sectors in the

ASEAN, including fintech, big data, consumer goods and services, and e-commerce (ASEAN, 2020). Since

2012, Southeast Asia has given rise to over ten unicorns, with a combined market value of over US$34

billion (Reyes, 2020). Startups providing new products and services are growing across the region and

governments have dedicated instruments or programmes to support innovation. Some programmes have

enabled providers like incubators, accelerators, or innovation centres to scale up startup commercialisation

and foster collaboration with the private sector (Ajmone Marsan et al., 2021). Overall, each member state of

ASEAN experienced the different stages of development and progress to foster incubators and accelerators

that would support the entrepreneurship ecosystem in the region.

Considering the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, there has been an organic shift towards

virtual incubation globally. As a result, many incubators will continue to have a hybrid mode and may become

global. This will encourage the demand for access to knowledge, resources, and mentorship. Startups might

leverage these global networks to seek more customised inputs that drive their success.

A major gap in the Indian ecosystem exists in the synergy between policy, industry, and academia. So

far, the exchange has been transactional at best. There is a lack of trust amongst these three communities.

This mistrust may be rooted in older generations of the industry, which believed that outsiders do not

really understand how the ecosystem works. The misconception that profit was the only motivation for

industry also plagued the academic community. There is a need to overcome this deep divide between these

communities. How far have the policymakers been able to bridge this gap between industry–academia–

government is still unknown.

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 Building Prolific Entrepreneurship Ecosystems:
Shared Lessons from India and ASEAN

Similarly, to boost the incubators and accelerators ecosystem, ASEAN’s key challenge is to collaborate

with academia and the private sector and facilitate the development of an ecosystem where a variety of

stakeholders could create synergies in the region. Monitoring mechanisms already exist, but more effort is

needed to gain a better understanding of the effectiveness of existing support schemes.

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 Incubators as Catalysts for Innovation

Policy Overview
The Case of India
In India, there is evidence of an incubation structure from as early as 1955, when the Ministry of

Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSME), which aimed to provide boosts to small businesses, set up the

National Small Industries Corporation (NSIC). In 1982, the National Science and Technology Entrepreneurship

Development Board (NSTEDB) was created under the Department of Science and Technology (DST), which

focused on generating jobs and commercialising technology. The DST is also responsible for the creation

of new programmes aimed at incubators (NASSCOM, 2020). In 2008, MSME also started setting up and

supporting incubators.

Before 2014, incubator related policies seemed to focus on technology-based entrepreneurship, with

schemes such as the Technology Incubation and Development of Entrepreneurs (TIDE); a scheme to promote

the Innovation Rural Industry and Entrepreneurship (ASPIRE); and the National Initiative for Developing

and Harnessing Innovation (NIDHI). In 2014, however, the central government’s initiative, Startup India,

became the catalyst for the incubation and startup ecosystem in India. This led to the creation of the
Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) by NITI Aayog, which had a more comprehensive and inclusive approach to

incubators (Sharma and Vohra, 2020). With these interventions, India witnessed the founding of over 200

incubators in 2010–2020 (Sharma and Vohra, 2020).

In recent times, policies have focused on geographical inclusion. For example, AIM supports Atal
Innovation Community Centres to promote innovation in previously unserved regions (AIM, n.d). TIDE

2.0, which was launched in 2019, started grouping incubators based on their location, focus, age, and

experience, wherein one group of incubators comprises incubators in underdeveloped ecosystems (MeitY

Startup Hub, 2019). Furthermore, in 2020, AIM launched ‘AIM-iCrest’ to build the capacity of AIM incubators

as organisations, hoping to create world class incubators (ET Now Digital, 2020).

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 Building Prolific Entrepreneurship Ecosystems:
Shared Lessons from India and ASEAN

Figure 1: Evolution in Incubation Policies of the Central Government

AIM = Atal Innovation Mission; BIRAC BioNEST = Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council, BIOincubators Nurturing
Entrepreneurship for Scaling Technologies; DBT = Department of Biotechnology; DST = Department of Science and Technology; NSIC
= National Small Industries Corporation; NSTEDB = National Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board; MSME
= Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises; MEITY = Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology; NIDHI = National
Initiative for Developing and Harnessing Innovation; TIDE = National Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board.
Note: Adapted from and expanded on source publications.
Source:
1. Sharma, S. and N. Vohra (2020), ‘Incubation in India: A multi-level analysis’, IIM Ahmedabad Working Paper WP-2020-03-01. https://
web.iima.ac.in/assets/snippets/workingpaperpdf/16280815672020-03-01.pdf (accessed 8 June 2021).
2. Sharma, S., N. Vohra, and S. Shukla (2021). ‘The Past, Present and Future of Start-Up Incubation in India’, In Shifting Orbits: Decoding
the Trajectory of the Indian Start-up Ecosystem, edited by Thillai Rajan, A. et al., pp.62–73. Hyderabad: Universities Press (India) Private
Limited.

Some of the more recent initiatives show a significant change in how policymakers look at incubation
as it not only involves geographical inclusion but also requires capacity building of incubators, giving them

an identity as organisations with their own set of challenges.

The Case of ASEAN

world. In the past 5 years, ASEAN experienced a strong economic growth that attracted private equity and

venture capital, amounting to US$9.6 billion secured by ASEAN in 2019 (King, 2021). The creation of the

ASEAN Economic Community in 2015 and the adoption of broad and inclusive development goals of the

2030 Agenda led to the increasing support of policymakers towards entrepreneurship in MSMEs to boost

regional economic growth and to narrow income gaps between and within ASEAN Member States.

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 Incubators as Catalysts for Innovation

The support is especially needed as in most ASEAN countries, MSMEs represent around 97%–99%

of the enterprise population (ASEAN, 2018). This number comprises heterogeneous groups ranging from

micro-firms to high-growth startups to small family businesses (Ajmone Marsan and Sabrina, 2020). Due

to the Covid-19 pandemic and the shift towards digitalisation, many MSMEs in ASEAN countries are still

struggling to adopt new technology and to compete with larger companies that have more resources to

upscale the business (Ajmone Marsan and Sabrina, 2021).

To tackle this challenge, ASEAN governments and many private sectors started to play an active role

as incubators and accelerators to create new businesses and facilitate new innovations. For example, in Viet

Nam, around 50 incubators and accelerators were active in 2018, most of which were government led (ADB,

2020). In Thailand, the number of accelerators increased from 1 to 13 between 2012 and 2018. In Myanmar,

the regional government played an active role in boosting local entrepreneurship, e.g., Yangon regional

government’s first partnership with a Swiss startup incubator to launch the Yangon Innovation Centre in

2018 (McKinsey, 2020).

ASEAN efforts to build more integrated and collaborative support for the entrepreneurship and

startups ecosystem progressed considerably in 2018, when ASEAN held the first meeting for the ASEAN

Business Incubator Network (ABINet) Project. The purpose of the project was to strengthen the regional

networking and linkage amongst the incubators in the ASEAN region and promote the competitiveness of

SMEs. The platform also serves as a network of mentors, offering incubation and acceleration programmes

for startups, while providing a channel for market expansion and incentives to attract investors to potential

startups in the region.

At the national level, several ASEAN Member States have already implemented incubating

programmes that focus on fostering entrepreneurship skills and development amongst MSMEs. In

Indonesia, for instance, several ministries implement these programmes and incorporate them into the

strategic plans of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, Technology and the Coordinating Ministry

of Economy Affairs. Under the Ministry of Entrepreneur Development and Cooperatives in Malaysia, the

SME Corp spearheaded these programmes. In the Philippines, the Fabrication Laboratories (FabLabs) of the

Department of Trade and Industry implement training programmes and research projects for technology

business incubators. Meanwhile, in Myanmar, entrepreneurship camps and incubators are run by the

country’s Young Entrepreneurs Association.

Other ASEAN Member States have implemented other initiatives, but the lack of concrete actions

and synergy amongst stakeholders remains a key challenge. In Viet Nam, a government decree identified

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 Building Prolific Entrepreneurship Ecosystems:
Shared Lessons from India and ASEAN

the agencies responsible for supporting start-up activities, but they have not implemented any concrete

programmes. In the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, the Five-Year National Socio-Economic Development

Plan 2016–2020 outlines measures to enhance the capacity of entrepreneurs, but few concrete programmes

appear to be in place.

Overall, many ASEAN countries already have national innovation hubs and incubators. With

the emphasis on the importance of public–private partnerships in building a successful ecosystem for

entrepreneurs, it is critical for businesses and private initiatives to nurture entrepreneurial skills (Ajmone

Marsan and Sabrina, 2021). However, to be competitive, policymakers in ASEAN Member States will need

to coordinate how to connect national incubators into regional networks and overlay regional business

and financial support services to help SMEs operate across ASEAN. Synergising the regional networks with

national incubators and innovators would open doors to new opportunities, nurture the cross-fertilisation

of ideas between cultures and communities, and support the exploration of complementarities between

countries.

Comparison of Policies
Comparison of Policies in India
In India, the government funds around 260 incubators (Rault and Matthew, 2019) and around 13

central government departments are supporting incubators (Sharma and Vohra, 2020). Each department has
a distinct focus area and direction. For example, a biotech incubator differs greatly from an agricultural one.

Despite that, incubators are often affiliated with multiple departments to ensure their own sustainability as

an organisation. The following list covers the departments with affiliated incubators at a central government
level.

List of Departments: - Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology

- Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog - Ministry of Human Resource Development

- Department of Agricultural Research and Education - Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare

- Department of Biotechnology - Ministry of Defense

- Department of Space - Ministry of Food Processing Industries

- Department of Scientific and Industrial Research - Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship
- Department of Science and Technology - Ministry of Tourism

- Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region - Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises

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 Incubators as Catalysts for Innovation

Amongst these, four government bodies stand out as top supporters of incubation based on the

number of incubators supported by each department over the years (Sharma and Vohra, 2020). We have

captured a brief comparative overview of the major national incubation policies by these four departments

in Table 1. This further highlights the different focus areas of each policy.

Table 1: Overview of Major National Incubation Policies in India

CoE = Centre of Excellence; IPR = Intellectual Property Registration; NIDHI=National Initiative for Developing and Harnessing
Innovations.
Sources:
1. Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (n.d.), Technology Incubation and Development of Entrepreneurs (TIDE) 2.0.
https://meitystartuphub.in/incubators/schemes/tide-2-0 (accessed 8 June 2021).
2. Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (n.d.), ‘Scheme for Promotion of Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Agro-Industry’.
https://www.nsic.co.in/pdfs/aspire15.pdf (accessed 8 June 2021).
3. NIDHI Prayas, (n.d.), About Us – DST-NIDHI. https://www.nidhi-prayas.org/#parentVerticalTab11 (accessed 8 June 2021)
4. Atal Innovation Mission (n.d.), Overview, https://aim.gov.in/overview.php (accessed 8 June 2021).

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 Building Prolific Entrepreneurship Ecosystems:
Shared Lessons from India and ASEAN

Comparison of Policies amongst ASEAN Countries

Across ASEAN, incubation and acceleration programmes are carried out in various sectors and

institutions. With most of the programmes led by government institutions, each member state has a certain

focus and strategies to boost the entrepreneurship ecosystem based on national characteristic and policy

priorities. As many ASEAN countries disperse access and support for potential startups and innovation,

national agencies are given specialised roles and responsibilities to support incubators and accelerator

programmes.

The following list covers some of the key central government institutions that monitor and implement

national incubation/startup programmes.

List of Key Government Institutions:

- Brunei Darussalam:
Ministry of Finance and Economy; Brunei Economic Development Board.

- Cambodia:
Ministry of Economy and Finance; Khmer Enterprise

- Indonesia:
Ministry of Cooperative and SMEs, Ministry of Industry, National Research and Innovation Agency

- Lao People’s Democratic Republic:

- Malaysia:
Ministry of Entrepreneur Development and Cooperatives, Ministry of Science, Technology and
Innovation
- Myanmar:
Ministry of Industry, Myanmar Small Medium Enterprise Development Agency

- Philippines:
Department of Trade and Industry, Department of Science and Technology, Department of Information
and Communication Technology

- Singapore:
Ministry of Trade and Industry, Economic Development Board, Enterprise Singapore, A*STAR

- Thailand:
Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), Ministry of Digital Economy and Society

- Viet Nam:
Ministry of Science and Technology

We captured a brief comparative overview of the major government institutions and agencies that

are responsible for the incubation policies in Table 2. This further highlights the different focus areas of

each policy.

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 Incubators as Catalysts for Innovation

Table 2: Overview of Major National Incubation Policies in ASEAN Member States

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 Building Prolific Entrepreneurship Ecosystems:
Shared Lessons from India and ASEAN

ICT = Information, Communication, and Technology; IPO = Initial Public Offering; R&D = Research and Development; SMEs = Small
and Medium Size Enterprises; Sdn. Bhd. = Private Limited Company in Malaysia; NUS Enterprise = National University of Singapore
Enterprise; NTUitive = Nanyang Technological University Innovation & Enterprise; SMU IIE = Singapore Management University
Institute of Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Sources:
1. Ajmone Marsan, G., L.M. Sabrina, and O.T. Jin (2021), ‘Entrepreneurship, Startups and Innovation (E-S-I) in ASEAN and East Asia:
Shaping the Post-Pandemic Recovery’, Lesson from ERIA E-S-I, Episodes 1–5.
2. Cradle Fund Sdn. Bhd, About Us, https://www.cradle.com.my/about-us/ (accessed 1 December 2021).
3. See NUS Enterprise, About Us https://enterprise.nus.edu.sg/ ; NTUitive, Our DNA https://www.ntuitive.sg/about-us/our-dna; SMU
Institue of Innovation & Entrepreneurship, Incubator https://iie.smu.edu.sg/ (accessed 1 December 2021).

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 Incubators as Catalysts for Innovation

POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS
• Policy support now needs to look at the gaps in specific sectors and lifecycle stages of startups. This is

vital for building startups and startup-like organisations. The requirements will significantly vary across

different sectors, such as agriculture, health, and education. Each sector needs a different intervention.

• Policy needs to encourage more entrepreneurship amongst graduating students in less explored

disciplines. It is a common observation across geographies in India and ASEAN that academic institutes

either do not promote entrepreneurship sufficiently or, at best, such promotion is limited to certain

disciplines such as technology, business, and management. Evangelising student entrepreneurship in

these areas may unlock innovation and create opportunity for long overdue disruptions in the market.

• More engagement in the form of procurement is needed from the government. While there are platforms

and recent initiatives in India to encourage procurement from small businesses, there needs to be

more policy level intervention towards this. The traditional tendering method of procurement is more

transparent, improves fair access, and is equitable. However, due to its requirements, in terms of scale

and legitimacy, it is out of bounds for early-stage startups. It is important to identify ways to retain

the democratic principles, but equally important to procure products and adopt services and solutions

from startups to provide them access to the market. This move from the government will also bring the

benefits of innovation to the citizens.

• Impact measurement and tracking for incubators and other players in the ecosystem can help policymakers

meet entrepreneurship goals for the entire ecosystem. In other words, what gets measured gets done.

This approach not only helps all the players in the ecosystem – such as policymakers, incubators, and

investors – align on goals, but also ensures measurable progress. Policymakers must pay attention to

defining measures that are relevant to the respective ecosystem.

• Governments can play a huge role in de-risking startups. At present, most de-risking is limited to

providing capital (in the form of grants or equity). More involvement from the government in the form

of industry connections, procurement, partnerships, certifications, support with internationalisation,

amongst others can help alleviate this risk and unlock growth for startups.

• Adjusting to the behavioural changes brought about by COVID-19. The pandemic forced citizens

across the globe to adopt technology. However, there remains a significant digital divide in urban and

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 Building Prolific Entrepreneurship Ecosystems:
Shared Lessons from India and ASEAN

rural areas within India and the ASEAN region. Virtual incubation is showing promise in the wake of

behaviour changes that COVID-19 brought along. Policymakers can consider defining virtual incubation

mechanisms and suggesting good practices for virtual incubation.

• Policy needs to strengthen strategic collaboration amongst policymakers. Incubation policies of

multiple government agencies would enhance their impact if they are in sync rather than operating in

silos. This can be done by appointing a nodal agency that would make it easier to share information and

collaborate between incubation programmes and policies.

• Policy should comment on and inform incubators about emerging sectors and focus areas. Ongoing

research to identify focus areas and themes that need startup intervention and support from the

ecosystem is a critical exercise for an ecosystem to move forward. Policymakers must support such

research endeavours that provide insights which contribute to outcomes for the entire ecosystem.

• Policy should strengthen the link between national and regional initiatives to build more opportunities

and benefits for startup ecosystems. For ASEAN and India, policy measures to help startups connect at the

regional level may have the added advantages of levelling the playing field. For example, governments

can boost cooperation at the regional level through cross-national collaborative policy efforts.

• Support the startup infrastructure that drives quality to scale up and help transition startups into

the new normal of the Covid-19 pandemic. Government plays a critical role in providing a regulatory

environment that facilitates the growth of new technology and startup cluster. It should ensure systemic
improvement in digital governance issues that does not pause but, in fact, accelerates during crises.

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Shared Lessons from India and ASEAN

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 Building Prolific Entrepreneurship Ecosystems:
Shared Lessons from India and ASEAN

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