Hyderabad: T-Hub, which leads India’s pioneering innovation ecosystem, has announced its growth plans under its new Chief Executive Officer, Srinivas Rao Mahankali (MSR), ahead of the launch of T-Hub’s new campus sized 5,82,689 square feet. With more than 1800 domestic and international startups that received support to scale, various corporate partnerships and international organisational tie-ups, T-Hub will work towards a stronger growth trajectory.
KT Rama Rao (KTR), Telangana Industries and IT minister said, “It is a homecoming for MSR, and we welcome and congratulate him on his new journey with the Telangana innovation ecosystem. Given MSR’s rich experience in this industry, we believe he is best placed to lead T-Hub and its operations.”
MSR, Chief Executive Officer, T-Hub, said, “Earlier as an outsider, I had been praising the concept of T-Hub – as the value it offers to not just for startups, but other important stakeholders like corporates, government, investors, partners across countries and cities in India. Ofcourse! I am excited and thankful to have the opportunity to be the next CEO of T-Hub. The focus for us at T-Hub is to build on our current strengths and continually improve, further elevating T-Hub’s capability as an innovation ecosystem enabler. We have some interesting projects, partnerships and program launches in the pipeline in coming months and the aim is to hit on ground with it as planned.”
Jayesh Ranjan, Principal Secretary, Industries & IT, Telangana, said, “T-Hub over the last six years has tremendously grown and we are very proud of its progressive impact on the startup, innovation and tech ecosystem, across India and beyond. Appointing MSR to take T-Hub to the next level of its growth is a strategic decision, given the powerful experience he is bringing to the ecosystem. Visionary leadership comes naturally to MSR, and it only gets better with his deep understanding of entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystem nuances. The Board is happy to have him on board and we wish him to achieve amazing milestones at T-Hub.”
At T-Hub, MSR is committed to positioning the organisation to become a stronger innovation ecosystem enabler with high-quality outcomes. He will be focused on fund-raising initiatives, higher valuations, robust employment generation and building scale through active community engagement. He wants to raise the bar on innovation to ensure T-Hub transforms Telangana into a leader in innovation across India and globally.
An accomplished serial entrepreneur, MSR has built and scaled businesses across geographies over his 33-year stint in the IT industry. Leveraging his experience and strong network, MSR will focus on creating a funding ecosystem at T-Hub, along with the other ecosystem stakeholders. Under MSR’s leadership, the process of the T-Fund initiative will expedite further – the T-Fund initiative is led by the Telangana government under its State Innovation Policy, which is getting operationalised in 2021. It is being given to the Telangana startups from various sectors like Information Technology, Cleantech, AgriTech, FinTech, Health-tech, Logistics, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Internet of Things, AR/VR, Hardware, Blockchain and Consumer Tech. T- Fund is a co-investment fund that shall invest alongside VC’s and angel networks to further support the Telangana startups. Any startup that is in the process of finalising a term sheet or has a signed sheet can apply for T-Fund.
Additionally, T-Hub has launched a unique initiative, Funding Desk to support startups with their funding needs at various stages of their journey. The team works closely with promising startups to prepare them for the fundraise with pitch clinics, understanding the investors perspective, reaching out to the right stakeholders to ensure that the process is value-driven and productive for the startups’ growth. T-Hub will also have nodal officers working with the central government to help startups receive grants, and curated efforts will be made to expose pre-series A and series A startups to venture capitalists across India and worldwide.
In the last six years, T-Hub has evolved from being a startup incubator to an innovation hub. It has helped to contribute immensely to the Indian innovation ecosystem by institutionalising innovation programs for startups, corporations and more, and building a global innovation hub. Due to this robust innovation ecosystem that T-Hub has built, we have seen a rise in the number of startups from 400 then to about 2,000 now, and phase 2 will further boost this growth. Some of the key highlights are:
- T-Hub has touched more than 1800 startups through various programs and initiatives. It has enabled startups to raise significant funding during these challenging times. Startups from various programs more than 2269 Cr funding to date like Zenoti, MyGate, WhistleDrive, Outplay, DrinkPrime and AdOnMo.
- T-Hub has evolved from prototyping programs to crafting institutionalised programs to support the innovation journey of more than 600 corporates like Facebook, Uber, HCL, Boeing, Microsoft and Qualcomm with more than 26 corporate innovation programs. It has received over 4100 applications from the startups for these programs.
- T-Hub has partnered with 75 service providers like Paytm, RBL Bank, Amazon Web Services (AWS), DigitalOcean and Google Cloud, enabling startups to advance their daily operational tasks.
- T-Hub has achieved notable success in introducing an innovation ecosystem in the academic field through its initiative, T-Tribe. The initiative has connected with more than 24 colleges, 800+ students and incubated over 10 idea-stage startups.
- It has helped over 300 Indian startups and more than 200 international startups scale globally through various 10+ market access programs and 18+ international interventions in partnership with global ecosystem players across over 42 countries. T-Hub has partnered with international ecosystem enablers and governments like Korea SMEs and Startups Agency (KOSME), FalconX, Australian Consulate, Japan Investment and Cooperation Agency (JICA), La Trobe University and others to help the foreign startups to scale up in the Indian market and Indian startups to explore international markets.
Says Dr Muralidaran N, Chairman, Aujas Cybersecurity, “I have had the pleasure of working closely with MSR during his time with Aujas Cybersecurity. We have observed first-hand his ability to understand the startup ecosystem and build exceptional teams. MSR has the experience, knowledge, connections, and skills to make a huge impact on the further growth of T-Hub. Adds Sudhir Sarma, Managing Partner, FutureIP Labs, said, “MSR is a trusted and decisive leader whose collaborative and strategic approach positions T-Hub in a very strong position to make some valuable contributions to the innovation ecosystem in the coming years.”
