Hyderabad, NFAPost: In what could be good news for budding start-ups, T-Hub, which leads India’s pioneering innovation ecosystem, announced its partnership with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and Digital India to help start-ups beat the competition with innovation and expertise.
T-Hub will lead Digital India’s Scale Up program for hardware and IoT startups across India. MeitY, Digital India’s aim is to provide scale-up opportunities to the startups and make them ready in terms of product, investment and new market access.
MeitY and Digital India have partnered with T-Hub based on its rich and successful experience of running various programs for key stakeholders, such as startups, corporates, government, investors and ecosystem enablers.
As many as 10-15 startups with leading-edge solutions in mobility, energy, agriculture, aerospace, manufacturing, consumer, health tech, MedTech, smart cities and logistics and supply chain sectors will be shortlisted.
The call for application for the program will commence in July 2020. Startups will be shortlisted from hundreds of applications after an extensive screening process.
Innovation
Ravi Narayan, CEO of T-Hub and Chief Innovation Officer of the State of Telangana, said, “India has already developed a reputation for its expertise in the software technology space. We are beginning to see startups emerging in the hardware space that are solving important problems.
“Schemes such as FAME II and Manufacturing-Hub plans by the Indian government has already laid a strong foundation. To further fuel the growth of hardware and IoT startups in India, T-Hub has partnered with MeitY to take the ecosystem to the next level so innovative startups can scale-up strategically. T-Hub brings its matured acceleration programme with access to customers, investors and specialized mentors,” Narayan added.
The batch of startups will go through regular interventions through boot camps and dedicated mentoring organised by T-Hub. During the program, startups will get exposure to design/to enhance their hardware.
In addition, they will receive mentorship in areas such as pricing, go-to-market strategies, fundraising, amongst others. As part of the program, the shortlisted startups will also receive equity-free grants.
Additional benefits
There are a host of additional benefits start-ups will receive. They include personalized one-on-one mentorship with business leaders. The start-ups will also get access to T-Hub’s network of mentors, industry experts, investors, premium service providers and ecosystem enablers.
There will also be opportunities for organizations to work with subject matter experts and mentors to refine business models and go-to-market strategy while selected startups also stand a chance to avail equity-free grants, as an additional benefit.
There will be several boot camps and interventions along with opportunities to collaborate with MeitY Startup Hub.
Selection criteria of startups
To be eligible for the program, each startup team must have at least one full-time employee. The product or technology the startup offering a functionality or capability must currently not be available in any off the shelf product, or a functionality/capability that can be demonstrated to possess a significant advantage over current offerings in some aspect.
The product or technology the startup offering for consideration must represent original ideas, wholly-owned with the freedom to use or is licensed by the team. Seed/pre-seed startups with a fully working prototype, with established technical capability, are also encouraged to apply.
