Hyderabad: Telangana CM Chandrasekhar Rao to throw open new T-Hub facility today

The five-times bigger, new facility will have an entire floor dedicated to venture capitalist firms. “We have great startups here but unfortunately the VC companies were all based out of other cities. We are plugging this gap by keeping aside an entire floor where any VC company can set up an office and use the space free of cost. It is forever. They can use the space till whenever they want,” said Jayesh Ranjan, principal secretary, IT, industries and commerce.

T-Hub has also set a target of one year to set up its regional centres in five Telangana districts in a year. These centres will come up at Mahabubnagar, Warangal, Nizamabad, Karimnagar, and Khammam.

“At T-Hub, we want to support at least 2000 startups a year. We are expanding to other states with O-Hub in Odisha. We are going international with T-Hub-like facilities in central Asia which we will help set up. We will soon announce our partnership with a country to our East,” T-Hub CEO M Srinivas Rao told indianexpress.com. According to Rao, four to five verticals such as healthcare, mobility and agri-tech have been identified for special focus as acceleration programmes are set for a step-up.

T-Hub has also set a target of one year to set up its regional centres in five Telangana districts in a year. These centres will come up at Mahabubnagar, Warangal, Nizamabad, Karimnagar, and Khammam. On a hub-and-spoke model, these centres will follow the same procedure as T-Hub headquarters to provide opportunities to rural youths.

For the inaugural, the team has invited founders of India’s top 25 unicorns and representatives of 30 venture capitalists. “Throughout the day, we will have sessions with unicorn founders for our startups to learn about their experiences. The chief minister will formally inaugurate the facility at 5pm and also felicitate some of our startups,” added Ranjan.

At the moment, only five floors are being thrown open and the authorities hope to make the entire building operational by year-end. Apart from venture capitalists, the building will have exclusive space for the Telangana State Innovation Cell, Confederation of Indian Industry’s (CII) Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Department of Science and Technology’s (DST) Atal Innovation Mission centre, the state government’s Centre for Excellence for Cyber Security, etc. As many as 250 startups currently operating out of the T-Hub building at the IIIT-Hyderabad campus will move to the new building on July 1.

The design of the building is inspired by Hyderabad’s iconic monument Charminar and its four minarets. The building is supported by four core vertical structures with extended arms. The design by Form Studios based in Hyderabad and Seol-based Space group was selected after a countrywide design competition. The project is executed by KPC Contractors Ltd and Eversendai Construction Private Limited.