Can a college idea ever become a million-dollar company?

The entire concept of E-Cell, PRMIT&R revolves around student-led, startups-ventures founded by students or initiated on college campuses. But you might wonder: Can a college idea ever become a million-dollar company?

There are numerous examples of college ideas that have evolved into million or even billion-dollar companies. You might be surprised to learn that Google was once just a college idea.

Today, Google is a global tech giant with a market cap of approximately $2.33 trillion and processes over 70% of all online searches worldwide. Yet, it all started as a simple idea on a college campus.

Here's the story of Google, how a college idea became a trillion-dollar empire.

Founded on September 4, 1998, by Stanford University PhD students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google began as a research project in 1996 called BackRub. In their Stanford dorm room, Page and Brin developed the PageRank algorithm to improve search results, and Google.com officially launched in 1998. The core business web search was monetized through advertising, and the company quickly caught the attention of top investors.

An initial check for $100,000 from Sun Microsystems co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim helped jump-start Google, followed by a $25 million venture funding round led by Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia Capital in June 1999. Google went public in 2004 and later restructured under the parent company Alphabet Inc. in 2015.

Do you know of a college idea that turned into a million-dollar success? Share it with us in the comments section!