T-Hub Is a Force Multiplier & Capital Will Not Be a Challenge For Startups: KTR In an exclusive interview with Entrepreneur India, the minister shared insights into the importance of capital for startups and how Hyderabad has the potential to become the medtech and healthtech capital
By Shrabona Ghosh •
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"For any startup to succeed, access to capital is imperative. We have earmarked one entire floor of T-Hub for a Venture Capital(VC) launch and while many have shown interest, we have to make sure they put their money where their mouth is, we will soon build that momentum. T-Hub is a force multiplier and as innovators grow and come up with ideas money will flow. Capital will not be a challenge for startups," said KT Rama Rao, popularly known as KTR, the minister of IT, Industries, MA&UD, government of Telangana.
In an exclusive interview with Entrepreneur India, he shared insights into the importance of capital for startups and how Hyderabad has the potential to become the medtech and healthtech capital.
Hyderabad is now home to the world's largest innovation campus–T-Hub– which is all geared up to support 2,000 startups. The T-shaped building, spanned across 5,82,689 square feet, aims to impact at least 20,000 startups in the next five years. The innovation hub is a microcosmic ecosystem that has supported startups and corporates such as Facebook, Boeing, Otis, Uber among others, through various programs and initiatives.
"The innovation campus is larger in scale than the previous one, 2,000 startups under one roof is a big thing. Our prototyping facility is spread across a huge area and all these facilities help thousands of startups fuel their innovations. The idea of T-Hub started as an Incubation centre and is now the world's largest innovation hub that has scaled up over 1,000 startups and aims to further impact thousands more startups in the near future," he added.
Asserting capital help to startups in these challenging times is one of the major resolutions of the innovation hub and till now T-hub has powered startups with a total funding of more than $1.19 billion from various players and it aims to expand further.
Hyderabad is also the life-science capital of India and produces around 40 per cent of the pharmaceuticals products of India. When asked about how T-Hub will work in collaboration with healthtech startups, he said, "We are the life-science capital of India and produce around 40 per cent of the pharmaceuticals of india. We also produce one-third of the world's human vaccine and we are home to many medical devices companies. The fact that Novartis has made Hyderabad their digital innovation hub, is a testimony that we can also become the healthtech and medtech capital."
Besides being bullish about the healthtech ecosystem, the innovation hub is equally focused on consumer tech, healthtech, medtech, edtech, fintech, insurtech, among others. "We are not focused on any particular vertical. Technology is all pervasive and we are looking forward to working in consumer tech, healthtech, medtech, edtech, fintech, insurtech, among others," he said.
T-Hubt has helped over 300 Indian startups and 200 international startups scale globally through 10 market access programs and 18 international interventions, in partnership with global ecosystem players across 42 countries. T-Hub has also onboarded 75 premium service providers and a pool of over 100 mentors to help the startups scale sustainably.
