Nasscom going big on start-up warehouse

Working on making Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'Start-up India' campaign a success, National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom) on Monday said it would be opening four more tech start-up incubation centres in different parts of the country by March.

At present, the sector body is running three such centres, which it calls start-up warehouses in the country.

"Several state governments have been in talks with us for opening more start-up warehouses. The government of Maharashtra plans to open two start-ups in Mumbai, as well as in Pune. We have a relationship announced with T-Hub in Hyderabad and the government of Haryana has given us space in Gurgaon. We will have four more such hubs in the next three to four months," said Rajat Tandon, vice-president, Nasscom 10,000 Start-ups.

Started in April 2013, 10,000 Start-ups is an ambitious attempt by Nasscom to scale up the system by 10x in the next 10 years.

The initiative brings together key stakeholders of the system, including start-up incubators, accelerators, angel investors, venture capitalists, support groups, mentors, and technology corporations.

It has received 11,000 applicants, of which 1,100 start-ups have been short-listed and 150 have been able to receive funding.

The programme is supported by founding partner Google for Entrepreneurs, and industry partners Microsoft Ventures, Kotak, IBM and Amazon Web Services.

According to Nasscom Start-up Report 2015, within one year, the number of start-ups in India has grown 40 per cent, and this number is expected to cross 4,200 by the end of 2015.

With over 100 per cent growth in number of PE/VCs/Angel investors along with a 125 per cent growth in funding over last year, the Indian start-up ecosystem has risen to the next level.