KCR launches T-Hub 2.0, foresees big breakthrough in startups

HYDERABAD: Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao on Tuesday inaugurated the new facility known as "T-Hub 2.0", at Raidurg, which is five times bigger than the first phase of T-Hub. Built with an investment of Rs 400 crore, the 10-storied building can accommodate 4,000 start-ups and has dedicated spaces for entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, accelerators, corporates and other innovation ecosystem partners. T-Hub started with a 70,000 sq. ft. building inside IIIT-Hyderabad campus in 2015 and the new T-Hub at Raidurg has a carpet area of 3.70 lakh sq. ft.

The Chief Minister felicitated 20 unicorn and 14 soonicorn startup founders on the occasion in the presence of IT minister K.T. Rama Rao, IT secretary Jayesh Ranjan, T-Hub CEO M. Srinivas Rao and T-Hub board chairman B.V.R. Mohan Reddy. The Chief Minister asked Rama Rao, Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar and Jayesh Ranjan to focus on creating more infrastructure and quality education to meet future requirements in IT and other sectors.

Addressing the gathering, the Chief Minister said, "Today, I can proudly say we have created a world-class entity at T-Hub to promote entrepreneurship and innovation. Our state’s startup policy is progressive and it helped forge fruitful partnerships with both corporates and academia."

The Chief Minister stated that the state government wanted Telangana to be known as the start-up state of India and Hyderabad as the startup capital of India. The Chief Minister hoped that day was not far away when the next big breakthrough in startup innovation would come from Hyderabad.

"Our state’s start-up ecosystem is valued as among the top 10 global ecosystems in affordable talent. It is among the top 15 startup ecosystems across Asia in attracting funds. In 2021, the startup ecosystem of Telangana was valued at USD 4.8 billion. Among cities in India, Hyderabad offers the best standard of living, and we want Hyderabad to be known as the startup capital of India. Our startups are providing valuable collaboration to the main sectors of our economy, namely IT, life sciences, aerospace and defence, and automotive including electric vehicles," Chandrashekar Rao said.

Reminding that T-Hub was founded in 2015 to bring in the best talent from across the country to nurture a startup ecosystem, the Chief Minister said, “The journey of T-Hub started as an idea eight years ago, when Telangana became the youngest state in India. At that time, we made a conscious decision that our state would consistently encourage innovation and entrepreneurship in a big way. We launched T-Hub in 2015, as a commitment to that decision. Today, seven years later, we are here to start our second phase of expansion, to build a resilient startup ecosystem in India. T-Hub has now become a national role model. It has impacted over 2,000 entrepreneurs and seen 1.19 billion US dollars raised in funding by T-Hub startups. It has facilitated connections with venture capitalists and angel investors, establishing a brand name synonymous with innovation."

The Chief Minister expressed happiness that many of the startups had also created products and solutions relevant for social sectors like education, health, agriculture, sanitation, and environment.

"All this has been made possible due to the very progressive policies in our state like TS-iPass, TS-Bpass, and Telangana‘s startup and innovation policy. We have made doing business easier for the startups, ensured that they receive mentorship support, get connected with knowledge institutions and corporates as per their requirements, receive funding support, and most importantly receive automatic job orders from government departments if their product or solution is of relevance to us," the Chief Minister added.

He appreciated Rama Rao and the team of officials who strived earnestly to create this unique model of innovation and entrepreneurship in Telangana.

T-Hub hosted multiple panel discussions on Tuesday by founders and senior officials of well known firms as well as upcoming startups. The keynote address was delivered by actor Rana Daggubati while panellists in other sessions included Swiggy co-founder and CEO Sriharsha Majety, Dream 11 co-founder Harsh Jain, Zomato chief technology officer (CTO) Gunjan Patidar, Delhivery co-founder Suraj Saharan and Redbus founder Phanindra Sama.

The topics of the panel discussions were diverse, and ranged from metaverse, building global GTM, emerging tech, building a unicorn and medtech.