VTRO Launches ‘EV Ecosystem Incubator’ - India’s 1st Ever AI based SaaS Solutions for the EV Sector

VTRO Motors is bringing about a major disruption in the EV sector with the launch of ‘EV ecosystem incubator’, their pioneering AI based SaaS solutions, designed with suitable customization for both battery makers and EV vehicle manufactures. This AI based SaaS offering is the first of its kind to be developed in India and will help the EV sector to monitor battery consumption, battery life cycle, consumer usage patterns etc. and similar data points for EV vehicles, which will help manufacturers to improve customization, lower costs and become better connected to consumers.

In addition to the software solutions, VTRO also has the scalable charging station infrastructure hardware solutions, which makes a complete implementable EV ecosystem package for any EV player to use. The entire offering will be rolled out in three phases over the next three – four months.

Speaking on this, Mr. Pranit Parekar Co-founder & CTO, VTRO Motors Pvt ltd said, “When we developed the software solutions and the charging station infrastructure scalable model, we realized that it would be capital intensive and over strenuous for us to implement it all by ourselves. Secondly, the entire innovative solutions would remain only within our network and not benefit the community at large. So, we decided to pivot our strategy and add a layer of customization to the SaaS offering so that we can collaborate with other EV players in the market in order to build a more efficient, sustainable and economical EV ecosystem. Today we do not have any holistic market intelligence or real time reports on the usage and performance of EVs or batteries or intuitive tracker for consumer preference and needs. We hope our AI solutions will help bridge this gap of market insight in order to enhance the demand-supply chain. We plan to roll out the EV solutions program in three phases – first being an AI SaaS solution for EV batteries, followed by the solutions for EV vehicles and lastly the charging station hardware support."

VTRO has developed a universal external AI enabled IoT module which can be fitted to any EV battery available in the market. This IoT module has a preset index of 15+ battery parameters to monitor and the company can customize as per their choice of parameters. The real time monitoring data will provide the battery manufacturers critical insights on the battery lifecycle, discharging pattern, consumer user pattern, etc. which will help in upgrading the batteries to suit the demand and needs of the consumer. 

This data will also help plot the overall performance and scope of innovation in EV batteries. This IoT module will predict the thermal runaway with Unique cell level tracking technology, which will help the industry to avoid fire incidents in future. As the number of batteries increases on machine learning platforms the data will give much more accurate predictions.

The next step of the rollout will be to modify the IoT module to track EV vehicle performance, allowing manufacturers to track real time insights on the durability and adaptability of EV vehicles on different terrains, the consumer usage pattern and possible modifications that can enhance the user experience. Phase three will be launching the charging & Swapping station hardware support which can be customized to the manufacturer’s requirement. VTRO plans to launch all the three phases over the next three – four months. 

The EV sector in India is currently valued at $4B and expected to go to $20B over the next 5 years. The domestic EV batteries segment is valued at $1.5B and will hit $8B in the next 5 years. SaaS solutions will help in improving the overall EV sector and mobilizing the next phase of growth drivers for this burgeoning sector, especially its foray into the non-metros and Tier 3 – 4 markets.

VTRO was incorporated in the year 2020, with the vision to shape the future of mobility riding on disruptive technology and offering disruptive end-user benefits and services.

VTRO is building an ecosystem to support the growing adoption of EVs rather than merely selling few EV products. The idea is to create a charging station infrastructure, which will enable owners of EVs to recharge / swap batteries while on the go. The infra will include charging equipment, power supply infrastructure, mobile app, and the software to manage and monitor the charging process. The setting up of EV charging station infrastructure is crucial for the widespread adoption of electric vehicles and the growth of the electric mobility industry.

iCreate Hosts 35 Incubators a 3-day ISBA Conference to Discuss the Growth of Incubation Centres in India

iCreate hosts 35 incubators for a three-day ISBA conference to discuss the growth of incubation centres in India. 

Participants learnt the essence of brand building, managing and growing of an incubation centre

iCreate (International Centre for Entrepreneurship and Technology), Indiaʼs leading tech innovation-based start-up incubator in association with ISBA (Indian STEPs & Business Incubators Association) hosted a 3 day capacity building programme from 13-15th October at its campus with 35 incubators from across the country. CEOs and Incubation Managers of ISBA’s member incubators underwent an intense training to understand strategies for incubation growth and stakeholder management under the ISBALEARNX program. Incubation experts from across the country were invited to lead these sessions.

Addressing the crowd, Mr. Avinash Punekar, CEO, iCreate said, “The last 5 years have witnessed significant development in India’s entrepreneurial landscape as the number of recognised startups in the country has increased manifold. This clearly explains the prowess of Indian inventors and the reason for growing investor confidence in Indian startups and therefore the need for development and growth of incubators in the country. We are grateful to be associated with an organization like ISBA that has been supporting us and has been at the forefront of assisting incubators and startups with different frameworks and actively engaging with State and Central Government for various policies. We are delighted and privileged to have the support of some of the most distinguished organizations in the country. Together with ISBA, we look forward to developing a stronger incubation culture in India and work on the mutual mission of making India the start-up hub of the World."

In an effort to focus energies on objectives like brand management and growth strategies for their incubation centers, the congregation saw participation from leading incubators like National Institute of Technology Tiruchirappalli; Pilani Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development Society; Science and Technology Park, Pune, Vellore Institute of Technology; SINE, IIT Bombay; IIT Mandi Catalyst and COEP's Bhau Institute of Innovation Entrepreneurship and Lead to name a few.

Extending his gratitude Mr. Prasad Menon, Vice President ISBA and CEO, CIBA said, “ I express my heartfelt appreciation to iCreate for organizing and conducting an event of this stature. Being one of the leading incubators of India, we have known iCreate for its commitment in promoting growth and entrepreneurial energies in the country and are proud to be associated with them. Incubators globally have become an ecosystem with an array of initiatives that support the economy leading the way in improving our global position as a start-up hub. ISBA aims to build awareness about the value an incubator adds to the industry and with this conference we see a commitment to our vision of transforming the incubator ecosystem in India. ISBA has been conducting such capacity building programs for more than a decade now. More than 1000 Incubation managers have benefited from such learning programs. Having partners and members like iCreate in our family, we are certain that we will successfully achieve our mission to build a conducive incubation ecosystem by bringing together various industry stakeholders”.

About iCreate

Winner of the National Award for Technology Business Incubator 2020, iCreate (International Centre for Entrepreneurship and Technology) is an autonomous centre of excellence of the Government of Gujarat and is India’s largest institution for transforming start-ups based on tech innovation into successful businesses. Located in a state-of-the-art 40-acre campus at Dev Dholera in Ahmedabad, to date it has supported over 529 innovations and 44 patents with a ‘high-touch, entrepreneur first model, connecting them with mentors, markets and money. Embedded systems and IoT are a focus area for iCreate, in domains like electric vehicles, agritech, smart cities, healthtech, industrial automation, and renewable energy, among others. It is home to Cisco's largest Innovation Lab in India and has partnerships with leading institutions in the US, Israel and other countries. It has a strategic partnership with CSIR, India's apex organisation for science and technology, and with leading institutions across the world.

About ISBA

ISBA was started a decade ago (2004), by a small motley crowd of Science & Technology Entrepreneur Parks and Technology Business Incubators that were established under the umbrella of the Department of Science & Technology, Government of India. Today it has grown to a membership base of 100+ incubators that are into entrepreneurship development custom writing here and incubation.

ISBA is registered as a not-for-profit Society under the Societies Registration Act 1860. Its main objective is “To promote business incubation activities in the country through exchange of information, sharing of experience, and other networking assistance among Indian Business Incubators (TBIs), Science and Technology Entrepreneurs Parks (STEPs) and other related organizations engaged in the promotion of start-up enterprises. "

Seedstars and Sai Srushti Group Open Applications for the Biggest On-Campus Talent Incubator in India

Seedstars and Sai Srushti Group open applications for the biggest on-campus talent incubator in India

Seedstars and Sai Srushti Group partner up to launch Seedstars Academy Bangalore

Seedstars and xMultiplied-advized Sai Srushti Group (SSG) officially announce their partnership to bring Seedstars Academy to India, launching Seedstars Academy Bangalore. The digital and impact incubator is set to train thousands of local talents with digital and entrepreneurial skills that can help people either launch their own startups or become software engineers. Interested startups can now apply here: https://seedstarsacademybangalore.softr.app/bangalore-academy.

With 86% of professionals estimated to look for new jobs in the next 2 years, the Great Indian talent war is indeed on. Coupled with the emergence of metaverse and Web3, the demand for specialized roles is also expected to rise by almost 98% in the next five years, increasing employment opportunities to 12 million specialized jobs.

While data engineers, programmers, and developers continue to be at the forefront of digital transformation, new roles are springing up rapidly. Unfortunately, the disconnect between the world of academia and industry is becoming more evident today. One of the key reasons behind this problem is that while there are a large number of young graduates, the youth are not aware of the required skills that the new industries want. So, there is currently a wide skill development and employment gap.

Seedstars Academy was created to address the skills gap in both founders and talent pool. The talent incubator equips participants with 21st-century digital and entrepreneurial skills. It aims to prepare emerging and frontier market talents for the future of work and increase the number of founders with the skills to build high-growth companies.

The educational journey builds on the expertise of SSG and the implementation capabilities of 01Edu and Seedstars who jointly trained over 140,000 talents across the globe. Graduating software engineers have a 100% success rate of securing employment at high-profile tech firms including Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Facebook.

The academy will train 300 talents yearly on-campus and equip them with digital and entrepreneurial skills. It follows an innovative-yet-proven curriculum and pedagogy based on collective intelligence to recode learning and train full-stack developers.

Participants require no previous experience or degrees and can end the Seedstars Academy journey by working as coders for local or international companies or starting their own companies.

The impact that Seedstars Academy would create is job creation through an increase in high-growth companies; increased employment for youth in stable, decent jobs through upskilling from the program; and contribution to SDGs through an increase in innovative ventures focused on tackling them.

“We are thrilled to launch such an impactful partnership with SSG around tertiary education in India. Together, we believe we can unlock the potential of countless talents in the country,” shared Pierre-Alain Masson, Co-Founder of Seedstars.

Seedstars Academy Bangalore invites all interested startups to send in applications here: https://seedstarsacademybangalore.softr.app/bangalore-academy.

ABOUT SEEDSTARS

Seedstars is a Swiss-based private company with a mission to impact people’s lives in emerging markets through technology and entrepreneurship. The group’s activities cover over 90 emerging ecosystems through a variety of initiatives such as the FTxSDG Challenge, previously known as the Seedstars World Competition, which is the largest entrepreneurship competition in emerging markets; Seedstars Programs that are designed to support entrepreneurs in varying stages of growth via training, education, mentoring, and access to resources; Seedstars Academy, a talent incubator providing digital skills and startup-based immersive education for the next generation of changemakers; Seedspace, physical coworking spaces and hubs located in 15 countries; and Seedstars International, a global venture capital fund for seed stage startups.

ABOUT THE SAI SRUSHTI GROUP

The Sai Srushti Group (SSG) is a decent sized organization which has been investing on Social Enterprise initiatives, one such being Seedstars Academy Bangalore. Having invested in and co-created some of Bangalore’s best IT Parks, residential townships, and bespoke educational institutions, SSG is proud to be a part of Seedstars partnership creating leaders for tomorrow. SSG leaders share a commitment to our time-tested approach to investing, hands-on value creation, and practices that have a positive impact on our communities. Leveraging its continuous innovation SSG has successfully invested towards becoming the most ingenious organization in the country bringing together the strengths of a value chain that facilitates the IT sector, Education, Social Enterprise, etc.

With the vision to uplift the life of people in India through education, health care, SSG is planning to lead the change by providing world-class education and tech-driven infrastructure development leveraging the strengths of the founders. Bengaluru Lifesciences Park (BLP), dedicated to supporting life science entrepreneurs; creating net zero environment; and fintech Initiatives, to name a few, are some of the most innovative ventures of SSG that will have an unparallel impact on the bottom of the pyramid.

SSG continuously strives to nurture and empower tomorrow’s people through education and to be an active contributor to Bangalore’s journey to becoming the Silicon Valley of India.

ABOUT 01EDU

O1Edu is the most advanced and innovative approach to teaching software engineering and programming. Learning is 100% project-based and practical, gamified, self-paced and entirely based on a proven peer-to-peer learning approach. Deployed around the world by 01Talent and its Partners, 01Edu is a very scalable high-end solution to unearth new pools of digital talent.

ABOUT XMULTIPLIED

xMultiplied was founded to back entrepreneurs, family enterprises and ultra high net-worth individuals seeking to scale up their businesses. xMultiplied accelerates the growth of entrepreneurs by bringing together capital, relationships and functional skills. We have worked across all five continents, notably in the areas of Banking, Technology, Industrial Manufacturing, Health Care, Consumer Goods and Retail.

RICH (Hyderabad S&T Cluster) and T-Incubators & Accelerators Consortium (A network under Telangana State Innovation Cell) Announce Mission 10X-SIGs, A Scaleup Program for Early Revenue Startups from Research Incubators

RICH (Research and Innovation Circle of Hyderabad) (Hyderabad S&T Cluster) & T-Incubators & Accelerators consortium have launched the Mission 10X - SIGs, a 3-month joint scaleup program for early-stage research connected startups.

The program offered to startups coming out of research incubators and accelerators, will facilitate market strategy, corporate market reviews, customer connections and funding opportunities. The collaborative initiative will support the startup ecosystem by working with research connected startups from several incubators and accelerators within Telangana and outside.

All the shortlisted startups will go through 3 months of mentoring to review their product strategy, overall go-to-market approach and corporate pitch readiness and refine these elements to address present business climate and constraints. The program also offers a 10 lakhs fund support for the selected startups and will culminate in significant market impact and growth.

“The challenge that most research startups face is in identifying those scalable market opportunities for their solution. This program addresses these challenges through a collective state-wide effort” Says Mr. AjitRangnekar, Director General of RICH.

This program in its first pilot will target DeepTech and MedTech domains. To be anchored by CIE-IIIT Hyderabad and IKP, in association with AIC-CCMB, BITS TBI &iTIC-IIT Hyderabad. With RICH and T-Hub enabling the corporate connections.

“This collective initiative by the ecosystem will greatly help the early revenue research-led startups. This is the second such initiative by T-Incubators and Accelerators Consortium, after Rejig-Hydstartups in 2020" Says, Ms. Deepanwita Chattopadhyay, Chairman & CEO of IKP.

About T-Incubators & Accelerators Consortium

T-Incubators & Accelerators Consortium (A network under TSIC). The consortium focuses on various capacity-building and collaborative programs for supporting startups and also provides guidance for the newly setup incubators in scaling their operations through the monthly T-Incubators & Accelerators Meetups. During the pandemic, the consortium had also launched RejigHyd Startups- an initiative to bring collective support to startups from across all research/academic incubators in the state to ease the pressures faced by startups due to Covid-induced slowdown and business constraints.

Startups can apply through the link here: https://rich.telangana.gov.in/Mission-10X-SIGs.html

About IIIT-Hyderabad:

The International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad (IIIT-H) is an autonomous research university founded in 1998 that focuses on the core areas of Information Technology, such as Computer Science, Electronics and Communications, and their applications in other domains through inter-disciplinary research that has a greater social impact. Some of its research domains include Visual Information Technologies, Human Language Technologies, Data Engineering, VLSI and Embedded Systems, Computer Architecture, Wireless Communications, Algorithms and Information Security, Robotics, Building Science, Earthquake Engineering, Computational Natural Sciences and Bioinformatics, Education Technologies, Power Systems, IT in Agriculture and e-Governance.

Website: www.iiit.ac.in

Women Biotech Incubator Launched in Chennai

In a bid to encourage more women into taking the tech entrepreneurship route, Dr. Harshvardhan, Union Minister of Science and Technology recently inaugurated Women Bio-tech Incubator at Golden Jubilee Biotech Park for Women Society during the recently concluded International Science Congress, 2017 in Chennai.

The inauguration took place during the Women Scientists Conclave organised on the theme “Women Scientist and Entrepreneurs – Game Changers Driving Science for New India.” It was held as a part of India IISF.

Taking the podium at the conclave, Dr. Harshvardhan said, “In the field of Science and Technology and Entrepreneurship, Indian women have had a major presence over the last 100 years. The DST and DBT have special schemes to attract women scientists and to provide employment opportunities to the unemployed women scientists. Women Entrepreneurship is a very important activity that has been growing rapidly in last few years. “Start up India”and “Stand up India” announced by Hon’ble Prime Minister are initiatives which offer tremendous opportunities to the women entrepreneurs.”

Talking about the talented women at the incubator, he added, “The women scientists would contribute significantly to the growth of the country and fulfill the dream of Hon’ble Prime Minister of “Making a New India”. Women scientists and Entrepreneurs definitely are the Game Changers Driving Science for “Making a New India”

Despite being the third largest startup ecosystem in the world, the sorry state of gender equality in the Indian startup ecosystem reflects the ages old discrimination and backwardness that the South Asian country has been fighting since time immemorial now. The second report of “Startup India- Momentous rise of the Indian Startup ecosystem” presented by Nasscom along with Zinnov revealed that only 9 per cent of Indian founders or co-founders are women. In fact, the year saw 'Women Business Ownership' index by Mastercard Index of Women Entrepreneurs ranking the Indian subcontinent among the lowest in the 54 economies it evaluated globally.

India, which has the second largest population in world out of which 48.17 per cent are women, scored a lowly 41.7 points on the index, which made it occupy the 49th rank among the 54 global economies that the index took into account.

The index explained India's poor performance by stating that the country presents much lesser opportunities to women to participate in the workforce, engage in entrepreneurial activities or even assume leadership roles in general.

This development was first reported in BioSpectrumIndia.

T-Hub To Soon Become World’s Largest Technology Incubator

According to Telangana’s Information Technology minister K.T. Rama Rao, T-Hub, which is currently India's largest incubator for startups, located in Hyderabad, Telangana, will soon be expanded and become world’s largest technology incubator.

Speaking at an interactive session of India Economic Summit of World Economic Forum at New Delhi on Thursday, Rao said innovators walked in with an idea and walked out with a product at T-Hub though ideas generally got nipped in the bud.

For the uninitiated, T-Hub is a unique public/private partnership between the government of Telangana, 3 of India’s premier academic institutes (IIIT-H, ISB & NALSAR) and key private sector leaders. It stands at the intersection of the start-up, academic, corporate, research and government sectors.

The incubator has a four-point long vision:

1) Attract the best start-ups and entrepreneur organisations from across the world to Hyderabad.

2) Equip innovators and organisations alike with the entrepreneurship skills required to succeed, using methodologies that transcend traditional learning.

3) Educate and promote all entrepreneurship related stakeholders in Hyderabad, including start-ups, investors, incubators and accelerators, research centres, startup resources etc.

4) Work with an extensive network of partners to help entrepreneurs launch and scale innovative companies.

Located at the IIIT-H Campus, T-Hub has a state-of-the-art 70,000 square foot building called CatalysT, the largest building in India to be entirely dedicated to entrepreneurship which helps bring the Indian startup community together.

Commenting on Centre’s ‘Startup India’ initiative, Rao shared that the main aim of an initiative like this was to encourage children in the country to innovate from a young age. It wants the common man to feel encouraged and empowered to come up with solutions for their everyday problems while making sure that money never becomes a factor.

This development was first reported in The Hindu.

Lucknow To Get India's Biggest Incubator Centre

Uttar Pradesh’s (UP) capital city Lucknow is all set to get the biggest incubator centre that the Indian startup ecosystem has seen till date. The news was revealed by Sanjeev Saran, additional chief secretary, IT and electronics at a programme, 'Creating an eco-system for start-ups', organised by IIM Lucknow, in collaboration with Lucknow Management Association.

Saran also revealed the location where the incubator is slated to come up. Reportedly, the incubator will come up on 40-acre space near Lucknow airport.

Once completed, the incubator centre will be responsible for shaping up business ideas and funding companies that have been registered in UP. The funding for the same will be done by Small Industries Development Bank of India(SIDBI).

Speaking at the conference, Saran also revered about UP’s startup policy. He said, “UP's start-up policy is better than other states. We give financial assistance of Rs 25 lakh to start-ups. We are currently reviewing both the policy as well as funding. In one month, we are hopeful of coming up with a new start-up policy.”

Saran also shared that the state government has increased the budgetary allocation for startups from Rs 10 crore to Rs 1,000 crore. He also added that with the incubator centre coming up at Lucknow, this amount will now increase to Rs 4,000 crore.

Additional secretary in Niti Aayog, Yaduvendra Mather also took the podium at the conference to reveal that for the very first time in Asia Pacific, a Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES) is slated to be held in Hyderabad in November this year. According to Mather, it is an attempt to connect women entrepreneurs with housewives for startups in the area of education and health.

This development was first reported in the Times of India.

Bengaluru-based Startups Club Launches ‘SC Incubator' For Early-Stage Startups

Being a young business is hard. Surviving through the first three years is in fact the hardest. If you ever manage to pass the three years litmus test, that is when a business' real journey starts. In order to help early stage startups in their journey, Bengaluru-based Startups Club has decided to launch a special vehicle called SC Incubator (SCIN) that would be working towards incubating, investing and accelerating early-stage startups over a 12-month period, according to a report in Inc 42.

For the uninitiated, Startups Club is an Open Inclusive and Collaborative platform for startups from Napkin Stage to Growth Stage. Currently present across 20 cities, the platform has successfully conducted more than 500 events and mentoring sessions for startup entrepreneurs. The club claims that these sessions have helped some 100 odd Startup founders in their entrepreneurial journey.

According to Startups Club, their main aim behind setting up SCIN was to fill the currently present gaps in the mentoring programs in the startup ecosystem. In order to become a part of SCIN, a startup should not be older than five years and it must have a valuation of less than Rs 10 crore ($1.56m).

As per the initial plans, SCIN is planning on taking in 10 startups annual. It has plans to scale this figure subsequently. The vehicle will have a pan-India character and will cover as many industry segments as possible.

SCIN's concept has received a big thumbs up from the startup community as four startups have already signed up to go big with Startup Club's newest venture. The four signed up startups are: Vellore,TN-based hardware startup, Vicara; Bangalore-based intelligent technology solutions startup for the retail sector, Grabbngo; Vellore-based personal care products maker, Renaura, and Foxity, a tech startup developing solutions in the night-life entertainment space.

[Image: YourStory]

Meet The 4 Startups Selected For Newly Launch SC Incurator Of Startups Club

The community of early stage startup, Startups Club (SC) has launched SC Incurator (SCIN) which aims to incubate, invest in and accelerate early-stage companies.

Startups Club brings for the first time in India, a perfect mix of community and investment through our Incubation program, supporting 0 to 5-year-old startups and entrepreneurs from across Industries. According the website, this program is designed keeping in mind the various challenges our entrepreneurs face post funding.

India is not a consumerist market and therefore it is important to be a little patient to achieve growth. With this in mind, Startup Club has created a 12-month program, called ‘Startups Club's Incurator’. “We believe we can deliver the best of both worlds, which is to incubate and accelerate. This program is open only to our Members from across cities,” informed the website.

Planning To Apply For The Program? This Is What You Need To Have

First of all, you need to be an ‘early stage’ startup that is operating for less than five years, with a valuation below Rs.10 crores ($1-2 million). SCIN aims to ‘incurate’ an initial group of up-to 10 startups per year, across multiple industries in India and has plans of growing this number in the coming years. Secondly, you need to be a member of Startup Club.

The Incurator has already selected four startups for its 12-month program. Here is the brief about them.

Vicara: Startup is building human augmentation (including gesture recognition) technologies and solutions in order to make human interactions with computers more natural and efficient.

Renaura – Renaura Wellness was established in 2015 with an aim to develop solutions in the beauty, personal care, and wellness domains. Started with a vision to develop advanced products Renaura has been involved in active research and development of targeted products that solve specific problems for consumers in various parts of the world. In simple words, it researches and develops a revolutionary approach to personal care products that target India-specific challenges.

Grabbngo – Founded in June 2016, GrabbnGo enables drivethrus at restaurants without any infrastructure costs as users get their orders in their vehicles as they drive past. It has developed an intelligent technology platform that enables enhanced retail solutions and services to customers through the integration of seamless product pick-up and delivery services from retail outlets.

Foxity – It is a technology platform focused on enabling engagement between night-life entertainment venues and their customers through an enhanced experience for discerning users.

In Next 18 Months, Hyderabad's T-Hub Claims To Be World's Largest Incubator

Hyderabad's T-Hub which is already India's largest incubator is getting bigger and will be the world’s largest incubator in about 18 months, according to Rama Iyer, ‎Senior Vice President, Head - Innovation & Strategic Alliance, T-Hub.

"We are bent upon making Hyderabad the startup capital," he said adding that the in about 18 months of its coming into being, T-Hub has been successful in garnering the attention of many industry leaders and policy makers from multiple countries, reported Telangana Today.

Citing an instance, T-hub, among others, has an eighth grader student who is working on creating water from humidity. "There are times when we want to skip school to work on his project. We are mentoring him on the possibilities and at the same time asking him to take his school seriously at this point of time,” he said adding that the young student has already represented T-Hub at various events.

Notably, much anticipated Global Entrepreneurship Summit attended by Ivanka Trump, daughter of US President, will be held at Hyderabad from November 28-30 and T-Hub will be one of the facilities that will be showcased at the event.

It is to be noted that currently, Station F located in Paris is all set to become world's largest incubator launched by French telecom billionaire Xavier Niel. Station F, which is former railway station in Paris, vaulted 360,000-sq.-ft space and can house 1,000 start-ups and 3,000 work spaces for entrepreneurs, consultants and investors. In order to become World's largest, T-Hub need to compete with Station F and this is not going to be easy at all.

With 70,000 square foot building called CatalysT, T-Hub is currently India's biggest startup incubator and fast approaching its objective of becoming biggest in the world. On the other, US-based Silicon Valley entrepreneur Gururaj "Desh" Deshpande had announced earlier this year to launch India's largest startup incubation centre of 85,000 sq ft at Hubballi (earlier Hubli) in Karnataka, the work of which is yet to be started.

In a bid to become world's largest T-Hub has already forged partnerships with stakeholders in US, Australia, Singapore and others.

China’s ZDream Ventures Launches Startup Incubator In Gurgaon

An India-focused venture capital firm, ZDream Ventures has launched its startup incubator ZDream Labs in Gurgaon, reports LiveMint. According to a media report, this move is part of a strategy to double down on the local ecosystem and serve as a bridge between Chinese investors and startups discovery in India.

Based in Beijing, ZDream incubator is housed in a 5,200 sq ft. facility. The newly launched incubator will provide mentorship and training to Indian startups along with the access to capital from Chinese VCs and tech companies, besides ZDream’s direct investment.

The incubator will initially invite early-stage startups focused on areas such as content and media, education and logistics and warehousing.

“All Chinese investors approach us—from large and small VCs to PEs and even secondary market investors… We also play the role of portfolio manager for Chinese companies that have investments in India, or are co-investors,” said Li Jian, Founder and Chief Executive, ZDream.Li Jian told in one of the

Li Jian told in one of the interviews that ZDream is an early stage investor and accelerator that consults Chinese firms on investment in India.

ZDream Ventures was setup by Li Jian in Gurgaon in 2015 which is the investment arm of Draphant, a TMT (telecom media and technology) consultancy group.  Jian along with Jason Wang in 2013 formed this investment arm which also operates news and technology website ZDreview.com that publishes content on Indian internet and tech space in Chinese.

ZDream picked up some early stage investments—namely, Milkbasket, Hotify and Iamwire—in 2014-15 to survey the landscape. With two of its investments in media, and a third content portal of its own, Jian believes the media and content sector in India is ripe for disruption.

Not only this, Jian believes that Indian startups, most of which are created around business models in the US, require Chinese business and technology acumen to work in the local market.

In 2016, ZDream acquired startups database and intelligence platform Xeler8. The acquisition gave the firm access to proprietary database and analytics tools to survey companies and at the same time share the resources with its clients and investors in China.

Recently ZDream Ventures has appointed Rishabh Lawania as its Chief Operating Officer (COO) and Head of Investments in India. The Gurugram-based company had raised about $10 million India focused corpus from Limited Partners (LPs) in China and other Southeast Asian countries.

Over the last couple of years, Chinese giants like Alibaba and others are slowly but steadily making its presence felt in the Indian startup ecosystem. This all started in 2015 when Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba made its first move in India by making an investment in Vijay Shekhar Sharma’s Paytm, a mobile wallet firm. As of today, its stake in Paytm has grown to 60%.

Tata Elxsi Invites Tech Startups For Its Newly Launch Incubation Program

Tata Elxsi, a leading global design and technology services company, is inviting startups having deep technology based product, platform, or solutions for Indian consumers in India to their Incub@TE program. The Tata Elxsi incub@TE program has been set up to foster entrepreneurial activities in the technology space. This enables the startups associated with the program to get better visibility and an association that brings trust in their target market.

The program will be for 9 months, providing a platform for startups and prospective entrepreneurs to convert their ideas into commercially viable businesses.

For these startups, incub@TE has tied up with 1Crowd to support funding needs and Nasscom 10K as ecosystem partner in order to further help these startups, foster entrepreneurial activities in the deep technology space. Tata Elxsi’s incub@TE will be able to take the startups’ ideas to the market by providing ready-to-use infrastructure, key technical consulting through in-house experts, mentorship, access to service providers, plug-n-play office and connections with people and organizations that matter.

Speaking on the development, Rajesh Kumar, Vice President - Strategic Initiatives, Tata Elxsi said, “Deep technology is a very futuristic concept, but is slowly taking lead in India, and globally. We, at Tata Elxsi, want to enhance this growth, and see many potential startups in the country that can help contribute to this progress. We look forward to onboarding some impactful startups working on deep technologies, and provide them with the right infrastructure and guidance, in order to help bring this development to the forefront.”

Relevant startups working on deep technology will have to present their ideas to the incub@TE team at Tata Elxsi, with information such as market validation, founders and key team member’s details, business offering along with target market, positioning, and current status.

Tata Elxsi, a part of the $ 100 billion Tata group is amongst the world’s leading providers of design and technology services for product engineering and solutions across industries including Broadcast, Communications, and Automotive. It provides technology consulting, new product design, development, and testing services. Tata Elxsi also provides solutions and services for emerging technologies such as IoT (Internet of Things), Big Data Analytics, Cloud, Mobility, Virtual Reality and Artificial Intelligence. This is backed by over 25 years of engineering experience, a global delivery presence and offshore development centres in India.

Michael and Susan Dell Foundation Looks To Set up An Incubator For Startups in India

To serve the underserved and the unserved segments, the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation is looking to set up an incubator for startups. According to ET. For the same, the foundation is in talks with IIM-Ahmedabad’s Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE). 

Commenting on the development, Rahil Rangwala, the director for family economic stability at Michael and Susan Dell Foundation said, "We hope to set up this incubator by the end of this year. With this incubator, we aim to back startups serving at the bottom of the pyramid. We will look at startups in the areas of financial inclusion, job creation in the informal sector and other important areas.”

According to Rangwala, the incubator will look at early-stage companies and will offer financial inclusion, digital empowerment, job creation and services in other such impact areas. Apart from this, the foundation will also offer seed funding to the startups.

Though, financial in rmation regarding the upcoming incubator is undisclosed, the foundation in 2016 committed $50 million for India investments over three years.

The foundation, founded by Dell founder and Michael Dell and his wife Susan, opened its India office in 2006 and has so far committed more than Rs 1,100 crore to social enterprises in India.

Talking about its investments, the foundation has so far invested in a range of companies in the education and financial services sector which includes startups like OnlineTyari and ConveGenius, Swadhaar, and debt-financing company Kinara Capital among several others. It recently invested in a technology driven, social impact focused company, NEST education. Apart from this, it also recently invested in Blowhorn, an intra-city logistics startup and industrial training company Skillveri as part of its job creation focus.

Not only it invest in companies, it also supports incubators. Recently/, the foundation supported a non-profit incubator at IIM Bangalore and struck a partnership with startup incubator UnLtd to back early-stage social enterprises working on skill development and employability of low-income youth.

Global Startup Incubator Techstars Is All Set To Make Its Debut In India; Enters Into JV With ANSR

To tap the country’s aggressively growing startup ecosystem, the US-based incubator Techstars is all set to make its debut in India. The global incubator is going to launch its new startup programmes over the coming weeks and months. For the same, Techstars has entered into a joint venture (JV) with Bengaluru-based ANSR that provides enterprises to build and manage in-house or external accelerators and other such startups-focused infrastructure. ANSR also has an innovation arm called Kyron.

The financial details of JV are undisclosed. With this JV, Techstars aims to open centres across multiple locations in India in a few years. The firm will launch its first centre in Bengaluru next year.  Commenting on the development, Lalit Ahuja, CEO, ANSR told ET, "The launch of Techstars India will provide an impetus to the rapidly growing startup ecosystem and the emergence of India as a dominant entrepreneurial network."

Through its programme in India, Techstars also wants to bring its other global portfolio startups and corporate partners to India and vice-versa.

Techstars help entrepreneurs and early-stage ventures by providing them with office space, mentoring and seed funding to early-stage startups for about 3-6 months. The selected startups are offered $20,000 in exchange for 6% common stock and a $100,000 convertible note upon acceptance.Techstars operates four divisions -a startup programme, an accelerator, corporate innovation partnerships, and a venture capital fund.

Founded in 2006 by Cohen, Brown, Brad Feld and Jared Polis, Techstars fund technology oriented companies, typically web-based or other software companies.Operational in countries such as Australia, Canada, Israel, France, and across the US, Techstars, over the past decade has accepted over 1,000 early-stage ventures globally into its programs. According to Techstars its portfolio companies have collectively raised over $3.8 billion.

Some of the notable companies that have graduated from the accelerator include Digital Ocean, Localytics, SendGrid, Contently, Occipital, Next Big Sound to name few.

A 20-Something Trio Led Incubator is Helping Indian Startups Get Silicon Valley Support

India’s startup ecosystem has been going through a rough patch. According to statistics available, the sector's funding has declined tragically from $7.6 billion in 2015 to $3.8 billion in 2016, with several major companies registering huge losses and seeing their valuations decline rapidly. Helping the Indian startups in such trying times is an incubator/accelerator started by three University of California, Berkeley students called Moonshot.

20-something Abhinav Kukreja, Anish Prabhu, and Aryaman Dalmia came together in the year 2016 and started Moonshot with a common goal of uplifting India’s startup ecosystem. The incubator is unique from several others currently operating in the market as it works towards connecting Indian startups with experts, funds, and talent from Silicon Valley.

Moonshot has a four-month long program that gives the selected startups a direct access to over 20 mentors in India and California, gives them exposure to various venture capitalists and angel investors and scores them talented interns.

The incubator's first batch of startups that was incubated last year included online B2B billing solutions portal Pumpcharge, marketplace ListUP, home appliance automation company Hombot, real estate and rental management service Azuro, student benefits platform Frapp, and small-business cash-flow management startup Numberz.

For its second batch of startups called as the Spring 2017 Batch, the incubator decided to go for startups working towards advancing science and technology, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and companies that have a positive social impact. The incubator filtered the 60 applicants it received for the same and arrived at its final four. The selected four are:

AIndra Systems

A Bengaluru-based startup, AIndra Systems uses computer vision and deep learning to create a scalable, cloud based solution to mobile facial recognition as well as tackling a wide array of problems in fields like enterprise healthcare and education.

FeltSo

The startup claims to be the world's leading social review analytics artificial intelligence engine that provides businesses with concrete, actionable insights from customer reviews through natural language processing, advanced deep learning and sentiment analysis.

The Climber

A youth-driven organization which aims to capture curious young minds and help them find their passion. Their current offerings include a community platform, mentorship, interactive sessions and much more.

Typeset

Bengaluru-based Typeset is a platform to craft world class research papers. Right from citing resources in a click to a beautiful editor and GUI to write equation, the platform is a must for every modern researcher.

The selected four will get access to Moonshot's world-class network of mentors which will help them grow their businesses and provide long-term guidance on vision and strategy.

The incubator's mentors range from serial entrepreneurs to senior lecturers at Harvard, and are experts in nearly every field and have experienced it all. They will be guiding the startups on every step of their journey and help them overcome any obstacle they face. While incubators like Y-Combinator often hold stakes in the startups they support, Moonshot’s mentors work pro bono.

As part of the four-month long program, the incubator will also match the selected startups with students from the most elite universities in the world for a 4 month pro-bono internship. The incubator is currently partnered with UC Berkeley, and is rapidly expanding to more top schools.

The incubator also helps the selected startups with pitching, due diligence and legalities, and match them with investors in the Silicon Valley that they think can prove to be best strategic partners for the startup.

At the end of accelerator program, Moonshot also hosts a demo day where all the founders put their revolutionary products on display to investors, and the general public.

Govt. Launches TEN Square to Incubate Telecom Startups in India

India's Department of Telecom along with Telecom Centres of Excellence and C-DoT have come together and successfully set up TEN Square, an incubator which would specifically work towards promoting startups working in the field of information and communication technology (ICT). The initiative was formally launched during the recently concluded India M2M/IoT forum 2017 in New Delhi.

An official statement issued about the incubator launch reads,"Department of Telecom along with Telecom Centers of Excellence (TCOE) India and C-DoT has set up Telecom Entrepreneurs (TEN) Square at TCOE India to incubate startups in ICT. This initiative was launched during the M2M/IoT forum 2017."

The Telecom Entrepreneurs (TEN) Square or TEN Square will be helping the selected startups right from their seed funding to the successful development of their Proof-of-Concept of technology solutions.

As of now, the plan is to admit 5 startups in the ICT genre on a half-yearly basis. This makes it 10 startups in a year and a total of 50 startups in five years down the road. The startups will be incubated along with with seed funding, which will be based on equity in the startups.

According to the statement issued, the funding from Venture Capitalists (VC) is expected to come in at the later stage for further growth and expansion. The TEN Square incubator would make use of its existing facilities at the C-DoT campus and also any other incubation centre to the extent that it is feasible.

In order to find its startups, TEN has a series of events planned in collaboration with a number of different VCs in the future with business pitch competitions being an important event.

All the proposals submitted under the scheme will have to go through a gruelling screening process by an eminent committee, which will be headed by C-DoT's Executive Director. The committee will be going through each of the submitted proposals and shortlist the ones it deems suitable for the project. It will also be determining the funding support for each of the startup against equity in case to case basis.

Held from 6th March to 7th March this year, India m2m + iot Forum aims to highlight India as the ‘Manufacturing Hub’ for the m2m + iot industry where a wide range of high-quality and high-end engineering products, services and solutions could be sourced by the companies, organizations and governments of the nation and the world. The forum provides a distinct platform for transcontinental companies to showcase their business ideas, innovations and capabilities to the potential buyers in one of the fastest growing countries of the world ‘INDIA’.

Tech Mahindra Launches Incubator For Startups In UK's Milton Keynes

UK's Milton Keynes has a new startup incubator in town. IT firm Tech Mahindra has recently launched InnovateMK that will be closely working with technology startups.

InnovateMK is an initiative sponsored by Tech Mahindra and Lividia Ltd, striving to drive in more and more innovation activity in the Milton Keynes area. The area has for long become a hot stop for startup activity in a variety of sectors- including automotive technologies and digital services.

According to a statement released by Tech Mahindra announcing the launch, the startup incubator plans to support more than 50 entrepreneurial ventures in the region over the period of next two years.

The main idea behind setting up InnovateMK is that anyone with an innovative mind can become an entrepreneur. Globalisation, automation and digitisation have drastically changed the work place and economy in the 21st century. The incubator strongly believes that everyone irrespective of what background they come from should have an equal access to a career trajectory defined by what all they can do, create and ship- not just who or which corporate they are employed with.

Having members such as CAPE (Community Action Platform for Energy), crowd, scholics, livida and Fat Pencil etc., InnovateMK has been built for innovators who work with disruptive technologies. The incubator boost of a range of services, facilities and world class technology businesses for startups, innovators and entrepreneurs to connect to and partner with.

The incubator currently comes with two different packages: While the £99/Mth Entrepreneurs Support Package gives 10 days per month in the innovation facility, mentor access, connectivity and Founders community access, the second package is a £199/Mth Residents Package which gives 5 Days per week access along with other amenities and facilities.

InnovateMK is looking to support local entrepreneurs and startups in the area by providing an easy access to several crucial resources required by a startup to grow and flourish. This includes an access to key entrepreneurial events, vibrant co-working centre, and several networking and mentoring events within the investment community, along with ways to market their ideas and products.

According to a statement by InnovateMK, Milton Keynes has emerged as a numero uno choice for startups outside of London. It also added, that for the sixth consecutive year, the annual index of economic performance has ranked Milton Keynes as the top city in the United Kingdom for jobs growth.

In addition to InnovateMK, Tech Mahindra is also one of the partners closely working on integrating solutions across a connected ecosystem of Smart City centred initiatives through the Milton Keynes area.

PadUp Ventures, a Mentor-Driven Incubator Focused on Tech and Mobile Startups, Launches Today in NCR

Padup Ventures, a mentor-driven incubator focused on tech and mobile startups has been formally launched today in NCR. Padup Ventures aims to create a world-class incubator with high quality mentoring capabilities across the tech space. According to NASSCOM, India has the third highest number of start-ups globally, with over 4,200 startups in 2015 and is the fastest growing startup market worldwide. With the Government announcing the Startup India Action plan on 16th January this year, the start-up community in India is set to receive a huge impetus in the coming years.

There are several key factors that determine the success of start-ups, including execution and technological expertise. Research shows that about 10% of start-ups actually succeed. In such a scenario, the importance of mentoring cannot be overemphasized. Global research also shows that startups that have helpful mentors, track metrics effectively, and learn from startup thought leaders raise 7x more money and have 3.5x better user growth. Also, almost a third of top performing startup firms were those where the founders had been mentored by top a performing entrepreneur. Padup Ventures endeavors to actively support young stage technology companies at formative stages and significantly enhance survival rates, and galvanize the startup ecosystem in India.

Padup Ventures, with a collective experience of over 70 years, is the brainchild of Rajat Jain, a corporate honcho and Ex-MD of Xerox India now turned enterpreneur, Pankaj Thakar, a tech and mobile evangelist and serial entrepreneur and Deepak Sogani, a seasoned strategic finance and business growth professional. Its range of services encompass the entire realm of the incubation value chain, ranging from mentoring; idea/concept positioning, validation and viability of the concept; forging strategic alliances, partnerships and connects, including customers, channel partners, investors, media, analysts, and advisors; and commercialization of product/services, to assistance with Angel and VC funding. Padup Ventures is being launched in the Delhi/NCR region to begin with, with a plan to grow across a few other Tier-2 knowledge cities across India, including Ludhiana, Kanpur, Jaipur and the like over the next couple of years.

PadUp ventures has been in beta mode for a few months now and already has built up a slate of around 10 incubatee startups across sectors like education, big data, interactive gaming and recruitment services. They have also supported their first incubatee, Neuron, to an angel funding round of over Rs 1 Cr and are now looking at a strategic merger of Neuron with a strategic player leading them to their first exit.