A National Centre for Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Startups of the premier industry body CII (Confederation of Indian Industry) to support startups as well as its members will come up in Hyderabad.
The facility will be supported by the Telangana government, by way of space at T-Hub technology startup incubator in the city, and Prathiksha, a charitable trust set up by Infosys co-founder S.(Kris) Gopalakrishnan, and his family. It will start functioning from April and on completion of T-Hub Phase II, being developed by the State government and set to open in July, shift there.
Mr. Gopalakrishnan made the announcement about the centre and its purposes at a CII Startup Connect meeting here on Tuesday.
Telangana Industries and IT Secretary Jayesh Ranjan, who spoke after him, said: “Mr.Gopalakrishnan will be spending ₹7.5 crore of his money for this centre.”
The Infosys co-founder, who is also chairman of startup accelerator and seed fund Axilor Ventures, said the centre will “support startups in all aspects, especially connect them with CII members which are some of the larger companies in the country”. It sought to benefit the members by getting them to know what is happening in the startup space, the innovations taking place and connect with the startups.
For the startups, the benefits will be in the form of getting access to customers, and a much larger market, besides mentorship and investment support.
“We are looking forward to providing a launch pad for overseas startups. We will be able to provide our startups access to overseas market,” he told the media later. On investments the centre will entail, he said it will be in multiple crore rupees. Support from the State government and willingness to work with the CII were factors behind the decision to set up the centre in Hyderabad, he added.
To benefit corporates
Noting that many cities were in the fray, Mr. Ranjan said the centre will be a “terrific facility for the startups as well as corporates”. The CII has 8,000 members and many more thousand indirect members.
Consul General of Belgium in Chennai, Mark Van de Vreken and T-Hub CEO Ravi Narayan spoke on the startup ecosystem in Belgium and Hyderabad, respectively.
A CII statement said the primary objectives of the centre would be to support startups with mentoring and other resources, attract innovative startups to collaborate with corporates and help corporates identify suitable budding startups for forging business partnerships. The centre would also help investors select potential startups for committing financial stakes.
