Telangana's T-Hub plans five-fold expansion of its startup incubator

Aiming to be world's largest such facility spanning between 3-3.5 lakh square feet

T-Hub, a public-private startup initiative by the Telangana state government, is planning a five-fold expansion of its operations with a new facility that will span between 300,000 and 350,000 square feet. The facility could become the largest of its kind in the world when it becomes operational in mid-2018.

The new facility will help Telangana retain the title of the state with the largest startup incubator, which is being challenged by the Deshpande Foundation’s upcoming facility at Hubballi, Karnataka this September. The current T-Hub startup incubation centre in Hyderabad is the largest in the country at 70,000 square feet.

“It’s an incubator. Today we have 70,000 square feet and the new one will be between 3-3.5 lakh square feet. That will be one of the largest in the world. The government is handling the investment piece, they’re building it out and handing it to us,” said Srinivas Kollipara, founder and CEO of T-Hub.

T-Hub says that the phase two expansion will allow it to grow beyond fostering two and three member startups, to helping slightly later stage startups. The organisation is now looking to create Hyderabad’s first truly successful startups, giving the ecosystem a much-needed perception boost it needs.

The number of seats the upcoming facility will be able to house is still under discussion, as plans for space to be allocated to different labs is being considered. Moreover, with a the company looking at larger startups, the number of companies operating out of the new facility will not be directly proportional to the increase in space.

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“Here (in the current T-Hub facility) we had to keep our teams very small, because space was very limited. But what you really want is to keep companies as they mature because they are the ones that have valuable lessons for the young ones,” added Kollipara.

Telangana is in an all-out war with neighbouring Karnataka to establish Hyderabad as a centre where startups thrive. Bengaluru, the IT capital of India, given its abundance of tech talent has become the de-facto startup hub of India, with a large portion of India’s most successful startups calling the city their home, or at least having development centres here.

The state is looking at startups as a way to create mass employment in the future, while also bringing in foreign capital and technology. Unlike Bengaluru’s ecosystem which is largely headlined by consumer startups, Hyderabad is looking to win in sectors such as healthcare, education, etc.