Telangana-Hub plans accelerator for healthcare startups

It will put a select group of healthcare startups on a fast-track growth, beginning from May this year

Hyderabad: T-Hub, the Telangana government’s flagship incubating initiative to encourage startups, is looking to accelerate growth of startup ecosystem in the city by launching an accelerator for healthcare startups.

The incubator, a public private partnership (PPP), has roped in global pharma giant Merck and Microsoft Ventures for the T-Hub Health Tech Innovation Accelerator which will put a select group of healthcare startups on a fast-track growth, beginning from May this year.

The chosen ventures in pharma, bio-tech and healthcare spaces will undergo rigorous mentoring for a period of 90 days under the stewardship of domain experts.

“The accelerator will comprise a structured and steady execution plan, a growth plan based on experimentation as well as metrics, and a well-prioritized product plan.

The startups operating from the accelerator will further receive mentorship from domain experts and will be connected to a platform to receive investment from institutional ventures,” said Jay Krishnan, Chief Executive Officer, T-Hub.

Interestingly, the healthcare accelerator is the first of four such initiatives to be rolled out by the T-Hub over the next one year. The other three, also of 90-duration, will mentor startups in the areas of business-to-business (B2B) solutions, agri-tech and fast-growing Internet of Things (IoT).

Inaugurated by Tata Sons chairman emeritus Ratan Tata in November last year, T-Hub is presently housed in a 70,000-sft ‘Catalyst’ building at IIIT-Hyderabad campus in Gachibowli. Telangana government is setting up much larger facility in the second phase of T-Hub.

“We have received around 1,600 applications for incubation space at Catalyst. Around 15 of these working in life sciences and bio technology spaces will be chosen for the accelerator programme,” the T-Hub chief said.