Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan during the MoU exchange between Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM) and NXTGN Startup Factory of Baden-Württemberg, Germany, at the Huddle Global 2025. Also seen are Minister for General Education and Labour V Sivankutty; Special Secretary (Electronics & IT), Seeram Sambasiva Rao; KSUM CEO Anoop Ambika; Thomas Neumann, Head, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany; and Bernhard Krieger, CEO, Hands on Solution, Germany.
Kerala Startup Mission has signed MoU with NXTGN Startup Factory of Baden-Württemberg, Germany, to benefit deep-tech start-ups on both sides.
The MoU was signed the start-up festival Huddle Global 2025 between by KSUM CEO Anoop Ambika and Thomas Neumann, Head, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany in the presence of Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.
NXTGN Startup Factory is a consortium of five major universities from Germany, having a venture capital fund of above 1 billion Euro ( ₹10,000 crore).
The MoU aims at developing around 300 startups in both in Germany and Kerala, which will be carried out in a structured way. The collaboration will facilitate funding and other support for deep tech start-up.
A steering committee and a working group will be formed to carry forward the collaboration with participation of the government, the State’s start-up ecosystem and German start-up ecosystem.
Significant feature
A significant feature of the partnership is its focused efforts to create a sustainable talent pipeline from the premier institutions and colleges in Kerala that would bring out innovations, which will redefine Kerala’s industrial ecosystem, besides creating a lot of job opportunities.
The MoU comes as a big opportunity for Kerala to lead research and innovations in deep tech sector in the country, Anoop Ambika said.
The collaboration will also facilitate close interaction between the start-up community in Germany, Kerala, and across the globe.
Published on December 15, 2025
