How the map is built
The Tamil Nadu Startup Map is a public directory of 752 companies and 36 investors across 11 cities. Every row is reviewed by hand against its sources before it is published. This page is the standing answer to what that means.
The four gates
A company has to clear the first three. The fourth never rejects anything — it labels.
- 1. Real and alive
- The website points at the company rather than a registry listing, a social profile or a parked domain, it describes something the company sells, and the company is still trading. A domain that has changed hands is caught by fetching it, not by reading the field.
- 2. In Tamil Nadu
- Founded here, headquartered here, incubated here, or running a real operating office here — and with a street address that can be sourced and geocoded to a real building.
- 3. A venture
- Not a non-profit, not a services agency, not a sole proprietorship, not a trading house. This is the gate that does most of the cutting, and the one maturity has no bearing on.
- 4. What kind
- Sector, funding stage and ecosystem tier, plus whether the company is a startup or an established incumbent. A label, never a verdict.
Common questions
- How many startups are on the Tamil Nadu Startup Map?
- 752 published companies and 36 investors, across 11 cities in Tamil Nadu. The counts on every page are read from the live database, not from a figure typed once and left.
- What qualifies a company for the map?
- Four gates, in order. It has to be real and still trading, with a website that describes something it actually sells. It has to have a Tamil Nadu presence — founded, headquartered, incubated, or running a real operating office here — at a street address that geocodes to a real building. It has to be a venture rather than a non-profit, an agency, a sole proprietorship or a trading house. Only then is it categorised and tiered.
- Does a company stop belonging once it is large or listed?
- No. Maturity never disqualifies a company; entity type does. Freshworks is listed on NASDAQ and belongs on the map. A three-person marketing agency incorporated last year does not.
- Where does the data come from?
- Startup India's DPIIT recognition register, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs register for registered offices and company status, SEBI's register of alternative investment funds for the investor layer, and each company's own website. Every row is read by hand against those sources before it is published.
- How are companies placed on the map?
- By geocoding a sourced street address, never by guessing from a city name. 752 of 752 published rows carry real coordinates. A company whose address cannot be placed is held rather than dropped onto the middle of its city.
- What does the map leave out?
- Anything that cannot be sourced. A missing field is a gap in the data, not a fact about the company, so no row is ever cut for something that was simply not collected — it is left blank and flagged for a person to find. Private or unannounced funding, headcounts and revenue are not estimated.
Found something wrong?
A wrong row is worth more to us than a polite one. Submit a company or flag a correction, and it goes through the same review as everything else. You can also browse the full list to see what is already here.