The tier-2 startup ecosystem in India was given a considerable fillip at Think Salem 2025, a conclave of startups, where 17 startups in their nascent stages, mostly from Tier-2 cities, were officially funded.
The announcements, made in Tamil Nadu, highlighted how innovation and entrepreneurship are steadily moving beyond metropolitan hubs into regional India.
Government-backed support takes centre stage
At the conclave, 12 startups incubated at the DST-supported Sona Inclusive Technology Business Incubator (i-TBI) signed grant agreements worth Rs 50 lakh under the Department of Science and Technology’s NIDHI programme. The funding is intended to help startups advance their ideas from laboratory validation to real-world application.
In addition, five startups received Rs 60 lakh in seed funding through the Startup India Seed Fund, managed by Sona Incubation Foundation, further strengthening the early-stage capital pipeline for ventures emerging from non-metro regions.
A snapshot of the innovation coming out of tier-2 India
The startups supported at Think Salem 2025 represent a wide spread of sectors, including healthcare devices, sustainability solutions, drones, mobility platforms, food innovation and applied deep-tech. According to the organisers, this diversity reflects a growing maturity in the Salem-centred incubation ecosystem and its ability to nurture solutions with commercial and social relevance.
Founders participating in the programme hail from Salem, Coimbatore, Madurai, Tirupur, Trichy, Hosur, Kanyakumari and Hyderabad, with Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) ranging from early proof-of-concept to advanced prototype validation .
Startups leading the cohort
Among the ventures highlighted at the conclave was NervePro, a Salem-based healthcare deep-tech startup that has developed an affordable, portable nerve-monitoring system aimed at protecting facial nerves during high-risk ENT and skull-base surgeries. The startup has completed a proof-of-concept validation study and is positioned among the highest-TRL ventures in the cohort.
Another Tamil Nadu startup, IswiftPro-Min-Sakthi, is working on an IoT- and AI-enabled platform that digitises appliance-level energy consumption, enabling accurate forecasting, smart billing and improved energy efficiency for households and institutions.
DroneTribes, located in Salem, has achieved TRL 6 for indigenously developed drones for agricultural, security, and training purposes, and has already deployed working models. On the other hand, Cabocab, a ride-hailing service from Kanyakumari, caters to the last-mile connectivity of tier-3 cities and has a TRL of 9, reducing dependence on urban areas.
Voices from the ecosystem
Speaking at the event, Dr T. S. Rao, Senior Advisor (Retd.) to the Union Department of Biotechnology, underscored the importance of translating innovation into public value, stating that ideas must move “from the lab to society through quality, scale and public–private partnership”.
Sivakumar Palanisamy, Vice President and Chief of Staff at StartupTN, emphasised that the future of innovation lies in solving everyday problems, noting that startups rooted in smaller cities are increasingly well-placed to build context-driven, scalable solutions.
Significance Of Think Salem 2025
The funding announcements at Think Salem 2025 underline a broader shift in India’s startup narrative. As structured government programmes and region-focused incubators come together, tier-2 cities like Salem are emerging as credible innovation hubs, producing startups that are not only locally relevant but nationally competitive.
For policymakers and founders alike, the message from Salem is clear: India’s next wave of scalable innovation is being built far beyond the big-city addresses.
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