Institutions of possibility.
Meet the approved organisations opening their capabilities to the region's innovators.
Elevate Startup Campus
Elevate Startup Campus is a fictional demonstration organisation sharing facilities, practical expertise and guided access with early-stage innovators. Its team helps users define a clear brief, prepare for a visit and identify the next step for their project.
ForgeWorks Technology Centre
ForgeWorks Technology Centre is a fictional demonstration organisation sharing facilities, practical expertise and guided access with early-stage innovators. Its team helps users define a clear brief, prepare for a visit and identify the next step for their project.
Greenfield Bio Innovation
Greenfield Bio Innovation is a fictional demonstration organisation sharing facilities, practical expertise and guided access with early-stage innovators. Its team helps users define a clear brief, prepare for a visit and identify the next step for their project.
Kongu Design Collective
Kongu Design Collective is a nine-member industrial design studio working on consumer appliances, textile machinery and packaging. Through the CII programme it opens two CAD workstations with SolidWorks and KeyShot licences to startups by the day, with a designer available for review sessions. The studio also runs design-for-manufacture clinics that catch costly mistakes before tooling.
Kurumbapatti Electronics Cluster
The cluster was formed by 40 small electronics manufacturers to share infrastructure none could justify alone: EMC pre-compliance, environmental chambers, and a small-batch SMT line. A cluster engineer supports every visiting team, and slots are allocated through a published weekly calendar. Startup access came in 2024 through the CII partnership and now accounts for a fifth of chamber hours.
Launchpad Enterprise Network
Launchpad Enterprise Network is a fictional demonstration organisation sharing facilities, practical expertise and guided access with early-stage innovators. Its team helps users define a clear brief, prepare for a visit and identify the next step for their project.
Meridian Innovation Labs
Meridian Innovation Labs is a fictional demonstration organisation sharing facilities, practical expertise and guided access with early-stage innovators. Its team helps users define a clear brief, prepare for a visit and identify the next step for their project.
Mettur Energy Research Centre
MERC is an applied energy research station beside the Mettur dam with outdoor solar test yards, thermal cycling rigs and grid simulation benches. The centre historically served utility projects; under its 2025 outreach mandate it now accepts external test requests from clean-energy ventures. Test scheduling follows weather windows, and every run is supervised by a staff scientist.
Namakkal Agri-Feed Innovation Centre
Set up to serve the Namakkal poultry economy, NAFIC runs a feed formulation and nutrition analysis lab with proximate analysis, amino-acid profiling and pellet trial equipment. Agri startups use it to validate feed recipes and label claims before commercial production. The centre's scientists co-author trial protocols with founders so results stand up to buyer and regulator scrutiny.
OpenBench Research Hub
OpenBench Research Hub is a fictional demonstration organisation sharing facilities, practical expertise and guided access with early-stage innovators. Its team helps users define a clear brief, prepare for a visit and identify the next step for their project.
Salem Angels Forum
Salem Angels Forum brings together 22 industrialists and professionals investing personal capital in district startups. The forum meets on the last Saturday of every month to hear six curated pitches, writing first cheques of Rs 10 to 50 lakh, usually as a syndicate. Deck screening is done with a CII panel two weeks before each forum so founders get feedback even when they are not shortlisted.
Salem Institute of Engineering & Technology
SIET is an autonomous engineering college with 4,200 students and a Central Instrumentation Facility built under its research grants. Under an MoU with the CII Salem Startup Wing, the institute opens its prototyping, testing and talent resources to registered startups at subsidised rates. Facility time for startups is ring-fenced every week, and a dedicated R&D office coordinates industry access so academic schedules are never a surprise to visiting teams.
Salem iHub Incubation Foundation
Salem iHub is a Section 8 incubation foundation promoted with CII support to give district startups a physical base. The hub runs twenty incubation seats, a bookable meeting room, an electronics bench and a hand-tool maker corner. Its mentoring circles pull retired export managers, chartered accountants and factory heads from CII member companies into fortnightly sessions with founders.
Sankagiri Textile Processing Park
The park operates shared dyeing, finishing and stitching-adjacent facilities for the Sankagiri and Komarapalayam textile belt. Its pilot wet processing unit lets ventures trial recipes on batches up to 100 kg with effluent treatment already in place, which removes the hardest compliance barrier for small textile experiments. A training bay runs industrial sewing skill programmes with placement tie-ups.
Shevaroys Agro Processing Park
Built under a state agro-processing scheme, the park operates common facility halls where food ventures can run trial and small commercial batches without owning a line. Halls are maintained to FSSAI audit standard with documented cleaning logs, potable water certification and cold storage on site. A facility coordinator plans the production calendar two weeks ahead so startup trial days never clash with anchor tenants.
Steel City Foundry Works
Steel City Foundry Works is a precision casting and machining company supplying pump and automotive castings. Its tool room, including a 5-axis machining centre, runs a single shift for internal work, and the management opens night and Sunday capacity to startups through the CII programme. A plant programmer reviews every external CAM file before it touches the machine, so first-time users get production-grade parts safely.
Steel City Materials Testing Centre
Steel City MTC runs mechanical, metallurgical and corrosion testing for the Salem steel and foundry belt. The lab processes about 900 samples a month for industrial clients and issues NABL-endorsed reports accepted by BIS and export auditors. Through the CII programme it reserves capacity for startup samples with a 48-hour turnaround commitment and a discounted first-sample rate.
Yercaud BioLabs
Yercaud BioLabs is an analytical services company with HPLC, PCR and spectrophotometry suites run by a six-member science team. It supports agri-tech and food startups with method development, not just sample running: analysts sit with founders to design the test plan and interpret results. The lab also runs an effluent and water analysis desk used by units preparing pollution-control consent applications.