Karnataka opens second start-up warehouse in Bengaluru

Tech-savvy Karnataka on Wednesday opened a second warehouse with the IT industry's representative body Nasscom to spawn about 400 startups for developing out products and apps.

"Success of the first warehouse with 64 startups encouraged us to set up a second warehouse in a 36,000 square feet space to house about 400 startups in partnership with Nasscom," Chief Minister Siddaramaiah told reporters.

Of the 64 startups in the first phase, 16 of the early stage firms together raised Rs 600 crore, and employed hundreds of techies.

"The warehouse will have a mobile devices laboratory and Internet of Things (IoT) laboratory for the benefit of the startup community," Siddaramaiah said, unveiling the facility in the diamond district on the old airport road.

"The new startups will innovate in electronics for education, healthcare and energy sectors, offering smart solutions for remote and rural areas," he said.

The state government recently unveiled a startup policy for 2015-2020, with a view to stimulating growth of about 20,000 startups by 2020 and generating a whopping six lakh direct jobs and 12 lakh indirect jobs.

"The startup policy aims at encouraging entrepreneurship, setting up incubation centres, fostering partnerships between R&D and industry and providing early-stage funding to start-ups by setting up a startup fund," Siddaramaiah said.

The policy covers information technology (IT), bio-technology and manufacturing sectors.

The startup council will review policy implementation under the chief minister's chairmanship regularly.

"We are soon setting up a startup cell to facilitate hand-holding of new ventures, floated by rookies with limited knowledge of corporate affairs and function as a one-stop-shop to assist the needy," he said.

As per the Global Startup Eco-system Ranking Report-2015, Bengaluru is the only Indian city to be ranked among the top 20 startup eco-systems in the world.

"Our government will ensure that Bengaluru maintains its leadership position and strives to develop other important cities as startup destinations on par with the top 30 international startup hubs," he said.

Noting that the state's policy encourages entrepreneurship by offering space for startups at subsidised rates, Siddaramaiah said Bengaluru had developed an eco-system for the knowledge sector to grow and prosper.

"Startups are a natural result of an eco-system present in Bengaluru, which has the distinction of having the largest IT cluster with 300 of Fortune 500 firms choosing the city for their R&D and off-shore development operations," he said.

With over 900-million mobile phone bases and about 350 million internet connections, the country provides a huge potential for start-ups to develop a variety of app-based products and solutions for end-users. Mobile phones and the high speed internet would generate a lot more tech startups.

"I am confident that the initiative of our government and Nasscom in setting-up the second warehouse will foster a vibrant eco-system, giving birth to thousands of startups," he added.

Bengaluru development minister K.J. George, state IT-BT principal secretary V. Manjula, Nasscom president R. Chandrashekhar and Nasscom product council chairman Ravi Gururaj were present at the event along with startup founders and techies.