T-Hub gets five times bigger

Hyderabad: What started as a humble 70,000 sqft building inside the International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) Hyderabad in Gachibowli has now metamorphosed into a 3,70,000 sqft building bang in the middle of the technology hub in Raidurg. The T-Hub 2.0 will be five times bigger in size and shape and yet the first phase […]

Hyderabad: What started as a humble 70,000 sqft building inside the International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) Hyderabad in Gachibowli has now metamorphosed into a 3,70,000 sqft building bang in the middle of the technology hub in Raidurg. The T-Hub 2.0 will be five times bigger in size and shape and yet the first phase of T-Hub has contributed immensely to this new venture.

“The idea of T-Hub started when IT Minister KT Rama Rao had a meeting with entrepreneurs working out of ISB. When asked about the challenges faced by startups, they said they were not able to afford big office spaces in the tech hub of Cyberabad. That is when we thought of having a building that offers desks at nominal rates to entrepreneurs and that is how T-Hub came into being,” says Jayesh Ranjan, Principal Secretary, IT and Industries.

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However, over the years, the technology incubator facility has moved away from being just a place to sit to a place where innovation happens. Since 2015, T-Hub has supported 1,100 startups who have raised Rs.10,000 crore from the funding ecosystem out of which two have gone on to become unicorns and there are 8-10 startups that are in soonicorns stage.

“With time, there was a growing demand for more incubator and accelerator spaces and we decided to build T-Hub 2.0,” says Ranjan.

From July 1 onwards, about 215 startups from the previous T-Hub building will move to the new building and about two to three venture capitalists have already booked their seats in the building. The old building of T-Hub will be returned to IIIT-H and two corporates have already signed agreement to set up their office here, says Ranjan.

Salient features of T-Hub 2.0:

• The 10-floor building will have dedicated floor for Venture Capital companies and space will be given free of cost

• Lots of partner organisations like Telangana State Innovation Cell will set up full-fledged offices in the building

• Many Centres of Excellence like the cybersecurity CoE will take up space

• Corporates like CII will have its Centre of Entrepreneruship and Innovation headquartered in the new T-Hub building

• The Government of India’s Startup India initiative will have their office and DST sanctioned Atal Innovation Mission centre will also be housed in the building