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Venky Seshadri has built an event services start-up flatpebble.com that helped vendors make a business of ₹5 crore. But what he really misses is an ecosystem that could help him take his start-up to the high growth stage.
“Just around the time, we have this T-Hub announcement coming in our way. We applied for a slot and got it. We are moving there in the next few days. What we will get there is an environment with mentors drawn from ISB, IIIT and national law university,” he told BusinessLine .
About 140 start-ups like flatpebble.com are going to be housed at Catalyst, the first phase of the ambitious T-Hub project, where the Telangana Government spent ₹40 crore and house 200-300 start-ups with a combined capacity to sit 800 people. Ratan Tata is going to formally inaugurate the facility on November 5, after a series of postponements.
Reducing mortality “The crucial phase in the life of a start-up is when they negotiate the Valley of Death. To help them succeed in this, we will run them through mentorship classes and validation of their products. We will let them understand the gaps. If the idea is no good, we will tell them,” said Jay Krishna, Chief Executive Officer of T-Hub.
“We are going to have a quick churn of start-ups at T-Hub. A start-up can stay for a maximum of six months. If need be, some of them will be given another six months,” he said.
Charges Like most of the co-working places, T-Hub will charge ₹4,000-5,000 a seat for a month in open areas. Those who take cabins that can house 9-10 member strong teams, it charges in the range of ₹45,000-65,000.
Telangana IT Minister KT Rama Rao said, “We will let them handle it independently. The only representative on the board would be the IT Secretary. No politician or minister would be allowed to recommend a slot for their kith and kin.”
Funding avenues T-Hub Chief Operating Officer Srinivas Kollipara said that about 20 top notch Venture Capital funds and angel networks have agreed to be associated with the project. Besides, the government would invest ₹10 crore in an Innovation Fund, exclusively to fund the early stage start-ups.
“NRI entrepreneurs that made it big in the Silicon Valley such as Krishna ‘Kittu’ Kolluri, Keerti Melkote, and Raju Reddy have shown interest. Together, we will make it a ₹100-crore fund. Once we breached this, we will increase the fund size to ₹600 crore,” Minister said.
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