File pic: Sivarajah Ramanathan, former CEO, StartupTN

StartupTN CEO Sivarajah Ramanathan, a professional CEO appointed by the previous DMK government to run the entrepreneurship development body, has resigned from his position. 

The State government is said to have issued a relieving order earlier this week, but a successor has not yet been named to the post.

As per Ramanathan’s appointment in 2022, his tenure was originally active till January 2027. 

Ramanathan confirmed his exit, but did not disclose specific reasons for it. He said he would continue to contribute towards the development of entrepreneurship across the State. 

Sources told businessline the move is part of the new TVK Government’s steps to restructure and evaluate various schemes and bodies set up by the prior government.  

Queries to the State MSME department remained unanswered at the time of writing.

By not naming a new CEO, there is now an uncertain situation in the working of the nodal agency that was set up by the MK Stalin-led government to nurture and develop entrepreneurship in the State.

The body is in-charge of various seed funds and grants for entrepreneurs under various categories such as TANSEED, TANFUND, and others. 

“For an area like entrepreneurship development, policy continuity and a dedicated leadership is important, and hopefully a new appointee will be announced soon,” a TN start-up ecosystem stakeholder said.

During Ramanathan’s tenure, the number of registered start-ups in Tamil Nadu grew over 6X from 2,032 start-ups in 2021 and over 14,700 in 2026. A new TN Startup and Innovation policy was also launched in 2023. He also took steps to diffuse entrepreneurship beyond Chennai and created hubs across tier-2 cities such as Coimbatore, Madurai, Erode and Trichy. Before taking up this post, he was the founder and CEO of Nativelead Foundation, which has mentored hundreds of start-ups from tier-2 and tier-3 towns of Tamil Nadu.

This comes at a time when there is hectic competition between states in business and economic development and TN’s start-up base is already behind industrialised peers such as Karnataka, Maharashtra, and others. 

Published on June 24, 2026