
KOCHI: Last year, Kerala’s startup ecosystem grew five times more than the global average and was valued at $1.7 billion.
The state topped the Global Startup Ecosystem Report (GSER) list in 2024, above Telangana, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. This rapid growth has made the state a major player in the global entrepreneurial innovation space.
The year also saw the growth of deep tech startups in the state. TNIE looks at 10 startups that did well in 2024.
Netrasemi Pvt Ltd
Founded in: 2020
Founders: Jyothis Indirabhai, Sreejith Varma and Deepa Geetha
Based in: Thiruvananthapuram
Funding: Raised funds of Rs 10 crore
Milestones achieved: Rs 40 crore grant funding from GOI
About: Netrasemi is a semiconductor company that builds system-on-chips (SOC) for optimal computing in smart IoT products. The company has a power-efficient, deep-neural AI acceleration core (NPU) and real-time edge-AI computing for IoT solutions. The flexible application programming interfaces, software development kits and application reference designs provide cost-effective and power-efficient advanced AI chipsets.
ENTRI Software Pvt Ltd
Founded: 2017
Founders: Mohammed Hisamuddin, Rahul Ramesh
Funding: $13.64 million across 5 funding rounds
Milestones: Billionaire Ram Shriram announced a venture round of funding
About: Entri.app is a Kochi-brewed vernacular learning platform that aims to help people land their dream jobs by providing the right skill set and expert guidance at an affordable cost. It is now one of the most sought-after vernacular learning apps in the country.
Inntot Technologies
Founded: 2014
Founders: Rajith Nair, Prasanth Padmalayam Thankappan and Francis Antony
Based in: Kochi Infopark
Funding: total funding $5,35,000 in 4 rounds
Milestones achieved: 1 million car deployments
Inntot Technologies provides software-defined radio and in-cabin audio technology solutions for both AM and FM bands with all complex operations including Demodulation and Channel decoding performed in the software. Inntot is also working towards developing Audio processing components to enhance and enrich the user experience in vehicles.
Growcoms Pvt Ltd
Founded: 2020
Founders: George Kurian, Bibin Mathews and Narendranath P
Funding: $3.5 million from JSW and Arali
Milestones: Fast-growing agritech company from Kerala
About: The agritech startup facilitates market linkages through technology and apt services for farmers, manufacturers, and food companies.
Sascan
Founded: 2015
Founder: Dr Subhash Narayanan
Funding: Rs 16 crore from Singapore Health Company
Milestone: MSME ICON Award
About: The primary objective of the company is to develop affordable healthcare products and solutions for cancer care, based on biophotonics and allied technologies. The focus is to make the products available through sustainable business models. Its first product was a hand-held screening camera for screening and early detection of oral cancer.
Green worms
Founded: 2014
Founders: Jabir Karat and Akshay Gunteti
Funding: Rs 25 crore raised
Milestones: FICCI Circular Economy Awards 2024 in Evolved category (2nd runner up). Recipient of the DBS Foundation Business for Impact Grant
About: Green Worms was founded on three key principles — minimise the waste generation, divert the waste from landfills and oceans, and dignify people working with waste.
ClusterDev Technologies
Founded: 2017
Founders: Ajnas K T and Arjun Sunil
Funding: Bootstrapped
Milestones: First company from Kerala to achieve 100 million downloads
About: ClusterDev builds software products that scale to millions of users. It started with the Malayalam version. Now the company has apps that help users type in all major native languages in India. WhatsApp Sticker Store and Sticker Maker is an app that helps users across the globe to create and download stickers for WhatsApp. 600k new stickers are created every day by the users.
Rosh.Ai
Founded: 2021
Founders: Roshy John and Rajaram Moorthy
Funding: Raised Rs 10 crore
Milestones: Raised $1 million in a seed funding round in 2024
About: RoshAi is driving innovation and progress in the autonomous vehicle industry through advanced Autonomy Software and solutions. With over a decade of research, it aims to accelerate innovation by offering Vehicle Agnostic Autonomy Stack, retrofittable drive-by-wire kits, and Robotic Soft Targets for ADAS & Autonomy track testing.
EYEROV Technologies Pvt Ltd
Founded: 2016
Founders: Johns T Mathai and Kannappa Palaniappan P
Funding: Raised Rs 10 crore fund
Milestones: Fastest-growing underwater drone
About: EyeROV is a fast-growing marine robotics company providing products and solutions in the field of the underwater domain. EyeROV has built indigenous underwater drones and has been supplied to various defence and research organisations. EyeROV also provides Underwater ROV Inspection services to dams, bridges, oil & gas, ports, and shipping industries.