Bangalore listed among top 8 tech clusters in MIT Review

Bangalore, Aug 2: Tech companies in the city have a reason to joy. Bangalore is named among the top 8

innovation clusters in a global rating by MIT Technology Review, a magazine on innovation brought out by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, US.

The other 7 innovation clusters include Paris-Saclay in France, Tech City in London, Skolokovo Innovation City, near Moscow, Silicon Valley, Boston, Israel, and Beijing.

What are innovation clusters? These are cities with dense web of technology companies, suppliers, and customers that are interconnected with each other. The review has been done on the basis of key factors that improve a cluster's chance of flourishing, which are strong IP connection, liberal immigration laws, good weather and entrepreneurial culture.

While Silicon Valley tops the chart scoring well in all the parameters, Bangalore;s strongest points is its weather, which promote openness and optimism. Bangalore, as per the report, received $300 million in venture funding in the year 2012.

Industry experts and top brass of companies like Nasscom and Microsft believe that the city can dream bigger because of its talent mix. They further believe that the city hs the right mixture of entrepreneurs and ecosystem that nurture innovation.

"It has a great support from a growing list of venture investors and smart capital. The city has the right depth of technical talent to scale an organization. The city has many grassroots networking organizations for startups. All this bring together a dynamic, consistent and ever-learning startup ecosystem that makes it easy for the new entrepreneurs to take a plunge," said the CEO of Microsoft Ventures in india, Mukund Mohan.

The innovation culture in the city could be credited to its close link to the Silicon Valley. An MIT Technology Review Article quotes AnnaLee Saxenian, dean of the University of California, Berkley, School of Information, as saying: "Where global technology centers have successfully developed-as in Bangalore-it's been because people 'marinated' in Silicon Valley and then returned home to start up companies."

Sanjay Anandram, the venture partner with Seedfund, notes that Bangalore's entrepreneurial culture can be seen in activity clubs like Open Coffee Club, Startup Sundays, Barcamps, and Mobile Monday. VentureIntelligence estimates that startup incubators can accommodate about 60 companies in a year, almost twice the number of Delhi.