IIT Madras student's startup Instipreneur acqui-hired by StartUp Monk

Instipreneur, a startup that works towards enhancing the college startup ecosystem, today said it has been acqui-hired by StartUp Monk, a startup services aggregator.

Acqui-hiring is when a company is acquired along with its employees.

The startup was founded by Shree Pandey, a third-year student of IIT Madras 4 months ago. The company said it works with more than 100 entrepreneurship cells in colleges, investors, incubation cells and brings out the stories of “unsung college entrepreneurs”.


Other partners in the team include Ankur Kumar (IIT Ropar), Nandini Manwani (IIT Bombay), Gayatri Chickermane (ICT, Mumbai), and Samruddhi Mokal (NIT Trichy).

"While joining hands with Startup Monk, we'll be able to work with bigger and much more matured communities like early-stage entrepreneurs including our prior major focus college entrepreneurs. Our long-term goal is to make Startup Monk a one-stop scam-free space for early-stage entrepreneurs. In our experience with both early-stage entrepreneurs and college entrepreneurs, we realized that there are so many early-stage startups who are being looted and scammed by people since they are first-timers. We want to make a place where they can safely try and grow and focus on making amazing startups," said Pandey about the move.

Pandey has previously founded another startup called Insti Life, which helps brands connect with students.

Sivesh Kumar, founder of StartUp Monk said, “India has the 3rd largest startup ecosystem in the world… [it is] expected to witness year-on-year annual growth of 12-15%... To be able to realize the immense potential the startup ecosystem carries, there is a strong need to provide the budding entrepreneurs proper guidance, resources, and connection. We were one of the first collaborators of Instipreneur. I was super excited seeing the vision and dedication of these college students driven team towards the startup ecosystem. Yes, they are still young but I am very happy in placing a bet on them and giving them the power to change. I am sure together we will channelize the energy of startup enthusiasts in the right direction ”

Chickermane, project head at Instipreneur, said, "We are majorly focusing now on making our community much stronger and well managed. Also to provide more services under our roof we are subcontracting with a lot of stakeholders."