Tech startup incubator and innovation ecosystem enabler T-Hub’s second phase, a 3.70 lakh sqft, swanky, multi-storey structure in the heart of Hyderabad’s IT hub that is set to be inaugurated on Tuesday by Chief Minister K.Chandrasekhar Rao, will accommodate thousands of startups, various eco-system partners and provide space free of cost to venture capital firms.
An initiative of Telangana government entailing ₹400-crore investment, T-Hub 2.0 will be the world’s largest innovation campus and has been conceived amid a growing demand for space from startups. It seeks to consolidate gains that the first phase — a 70,000 sqft facility that opened in 2015 at IIIT-Hyderabad — made through sharpening of focus.
Five times bigger, the second phase can accommodate as many as 4,000 startups, as against the 800 possible at the existing facility, IT and Industries Secretary Jayesh Ranjan said on Monday. With funding crucial for startups to take their products and services to the next level, it has been decided to offer space free of cost to venture capital (VC) firms, he said, expecting the move to result in VCs enhancing their engagement with Hyderabad.
The plan is to dedicate one floor in the 10-storey building to offices of VCs.
T-Hub 2.0, developed at Raidurg, will also play host to offices of several partner organisations, including the Telangana State Innovation Cell, a Centre of Excellence in Cyber Security, CII’s Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and the department of Science and Technology’s Atal Innovation Mission focussed on AI (artificial intelligence).
Five floors are being opened on June 28 and the remaining will be readied by the year-end, he said, adding that in near future, the plan is to have a regional centre of T-Hub in Warangal, Karimnagar, Khammam, Nizamabad and Mahbubnagar.
The first phase of T-Hub supported 1,100 startups, helped them raise nearly ₹10,000 crore from the funding ecosystem and played a part in the shaping of three unicorns and a clutch of soonicorns.
“It is not that all startups are commercially focussed, there are other startups that understand social challenges... they have solutions for that. We are confident that the same kind of ethos will be reflected in the second phase too... with lots of startups focussed on social problems,” Mr.Ranjan said, adding that the 215 startups now at the first phase will be moving to the new building on July 1.
