Warmth and Assistance - The Hyderabad Incubator Scene

A friend asked me, during another string of our banal exchanges in the light of India’s largest technology incubator centre ‘T-Hub’ being inaugurated in Hyderabad by the venerable Shri Ratan Tata, a strikingly simple question-

“What exactly is an incubator?”

Momentarily lost for words, I replied – “Have you ever seen those baby beds in hospitals or movies where most of us must have spent the first few days of our life? An incubator is that machine which keeps us warm and provides us assistance and support when we are too young to take care of ourselves. In today’s ever changing and hyper-competitive world a start-up is needs constant support and mentorship to break even and make their dreams come to life. An incubator is the solution to all these life-threatening problems for a start-up.”

“That’s so cool!” he replied with excited eyes.

I needed to answer better the next time someone asked me this question and in this effort. Incubators support a startup with management training/mentorship, office space and other challenges associated with running a business. Here are some of the interesting incubators in Hyderabad that I stumbled upon-

1.T-Hub:

Already making its presence felt, phase-1 of T-Hub currently housed in IIIT Hyderabad has not only world class infrastructure with 8000 sft and support from reputed institutions IIIT-H, NALSAR and ISB but also an enviable line up of investors and how could I not mention government support. It is estimated to have 300 buzzing start-ups in it very soon making it the biggest incubator in India.

2.DLabs – ISB, Hyderabad:

Integrated team,Unique Mentorship and a Global Network they say is their USP.

But that is not it ,revolutionary in its sphere DLabs is a incubator which is focused on Human Centered Design (HCD) because often high quality meaningful design is expensive and even more so for startups and incorporating HCD principles is one of the only ways for a startup to make an impact.Currently they are focused on startups having motive to implement HCD in the health care department.

3.CIE, IIIT Hyderabad:

Another gem of a start-up incubator on campus of IIIT-H, The Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship has always been a strong believer of path breaking ideas funding start-ups like Zify, a ride sharing app and many more others.It also has a Co-working space called Launchpad with currently 44 start-ups housed under it.

4.Life Science incubator at IKP Knowledge Park:

Why shouldn’t entrepreneurship happen in the life sciences area? This is a question the incubator at IKP Knowledge park dares to ask.Spread across 3200sft and armed with state of the art labs the LSI(life science incubator) encourages and nurtures start-ups in pharmaceutical/biotechnology areas.In the last 15 years it has helped Laurus labs which is now a 1,000 crore company and has incubated or provided research grants to over 150 companies.

5. TBI, BITS – Hyderabad

Enviably,The Technology Business Incubator at the Hyderabad campus of BITS Pilani plans to incubate start-ups in the niche MEMS (Micro electro-mechanical) device space by setting up a huge lab.It also already 2000sqft space to incubate biotech start-ups besides 5000 sqft  of office and common  space. They have space for 20 roaring dreams to flourish  and great on campus tech support.

Comments

comments