The ultimate one-stop shop for startup resources: Hyderabad4Innovation.in

Their love for nurturing innovation and entrepreneurship in Hyderabad brought more than 80 people together to inaugurate startup Hyderabad4Innovation, sacrificing their Sunday morning and the highly anticipated India vs Pakistan World Cup 2015 face-off. While the whole of India was watching the match, these passionate ecosystem enablers were discussing ways to find the best ways to help Hyderabad startups.

The folks who congregated were determined to foster the city’s startup ecosystem to help make it the entrepreneurship capital of India. The event had brainstorming sessions on action items and inaugurated a printed publication of their Hyderabad4Innovation directory, which has 100 ecosystem support resources.

This is one of its kind initiative in the country. For many who participated at the event, it was an-eye opening moment to see and hear what’s happening. There were many well-kept secrets uncovered from research labs in the city.

“The idea of publishing this guide in print is ‘To make it tangible’ and it highlights the startup support system support that is available all around us,” said Ramesh Loghanatan, who is leading this initiative with a team behind him. He added: “This is completely put together by collaboration of bunch of startup. Design is done by one startup and printing is done by another startup.”

What is H4I

“100 startup support networks, enablers, accelerators and funding resources come together to uncover, discover and network at Hyderabad4Innovation (H4I). It is an informal group that includes the directors of IIT/IIIT/BITS/ISB and industry leaders like BVR Mohan Reddy, Srini Raju and JA Chowdary and TiE& HYSEA presidents. H4I's objective is to nurture, accelerate and amplify the startup innovation ecosystem in Hyderabad.

Hyderabad 4 Innovation has built a directory of academic incubators, social groups, research institutions, and other commercial entities (incubators, co-working spaces, seed funds & accelerators). Over 100 startup support organizations came together to deliberate on creating a platform for active collaboration amongst the groups”

“Innovation happens at the intersection of industries. The idea here is not to replicate, but to bring participants from,” said Dr. Ramesh Babu of Venture East at the Sunday press conference

One inspiration that came out of the event was not just looking at Silicon valley for inspiration, but also to look at smaller geographies with an entrepreneurial culture. Case in point, there was a lot of discussion about Estonia, which has less population than RangaReddy district of Telengana, but has an extremely vibrant tech product-driven ecosystem. The enthusiasm in the room was so high, even the ISB dean Ajit Rangnekar got up to share his wild dream: “I want to see -in a decade when Silicon Valley have to think of themselves as ‘Hyderabad of the U.S.’”

The consensus in the room was

1. We need to work with government
2. We need to motivate our youngsters to start up.

At the moment, the city has a lot going for it. For example, IIIT has incubated more number of companies than any other institute in the country. The companies that comes out Israel are comes out of academic institutes and IIIT-Hyderabad wants to have a same impact in the entrepreneurial ecosystem. The Telangana government, too, has made some serious commitments to fostering startup growth.

H4I is an innovation network for the city ecosystem.

Here are few of the organizations that are part of the ecosystem

Incubators: Those suitable for development of products and technologies, which requires longer period of research and development and inputs. Incubators that don't offer any funding or take stakes either are funded by the government or academic institutes.

Progress Pacific, IIT-H, BITS Pilani Hyd, DLabs, Hyderabad Angels, Huston Technology Center, ICRISAT Agri Incubator, IKP Life Science Incubator, Microsoft Ventures, Sujana Innovation Center, Uttishta Capital, UnLtd Hyderabad, UpTec Idealabs, WCED-ISB, WaveLabs  and 91SpringBoard

Accelerators: Those who accelerate startups on the principle of building quickly, failing faster and hitting the market again with a better product by offering 360-degree business service, mentors who have expertise in go-to-market strategies.

Anthill Ventures, Catalyzer, DLab Healthstart, Founder Institute, Instill Motion and Startup Leadership Program

Events: A startup event that offers great deal of opportunity in terms of awareness and networking apart from working as a springboard for innovation in the city.

BioAsia HealthCare Davthon, Desing Summit, Devthon, Hackers Summit, HackMania, HeadStart Hire, HySea, IN50 Hours, ImGeek, ISB iDiya, Microsoft Bizspark, Nasscom Product Conclave, ReDex Boot Camp, Startup Saturday, Startup Weekend, TechSparks, TEP, The August Fest and TiE SmashUP.

Mentoring: Those who provide mentoring and support to strengthen Hyderabadi startups in getting their new businesses off the ground.

Startup Leadership Program (SLP), Founders Institute (FI), Lean Startup Machine(LSM), Center for Social Initiative and Management (CSIM), Srujana Innovative Center (LVPEI) and AskMentor.

Seed funds: Investors who come in very early to support startups till they start generating revenue or until they’re ready for further investment.

50KVenures, Anthill Ventures, BitChemy, IIIT-H Seedfund, Incessant tech fund, Parampara fund, Powerhouse Ventures, Unitus Seed fund, UnLtd Hyderabad and Uttisha Capita.

Angel Investors: Investors that will put it INR 75 lakhs-3 crores in a startup. They not just bring money to the table, but also bring expertise, connection and business mentorship in the day-to-day life of a startup.

Hyderabad Angels, Mumbai Angels, Venture Giant and Indian Angels Network

Venture Capitalist: Those who come in after a startup has demonstrated a fair amount of market acceptability and needs a large amount of capital to scale rapidly.

Ineda Venture Group, Nasscom India Innovation fund, NayaVentures, Nirvana Holdigs, Peepul Capital, Singularity Strategic, SriCapital and Venture East.

Co-working spaces: Shared working venues in the city of Hyderabad.

CoWorkZone, HatchStation, iHub Hyd, iKeva, Co.Lab.Orate, CoKarma, CollabHouse, CoWorkable, JackyourStartup, Lamakaan, LunchPad, OCTO Spaces, Regus, RentADesk, Roots, ServCorp, ShareDesk, The Valley and UPTech IdeaLabs.

Support Organization: Industry bodies and networks that form a crucial part of the ecosystem in Hyderabad.

T-Hub, HySea, TiE Hyderabad, Hyderabad Hackers, CII, Nasscom, ALEAP, BNI, COWE, Eat, Sleep, Drink startups, HeadStart Network Foundation , Indian Jaycees –JCI, The Entrepreneurship Forum and YI Hyderabad (Young Indians).

Online Resource:Platforms with information helpful for the startup ecosystem.

YourStory.com, Fests.info, HyderabadHackrs.in, Inc24.com, Saddaq.com and Startup Hyderabad.com

Research Institute: Hyderabad-based institutes focussed on research that brings rich domain knowledge and vast experience in specialized sectors.

LV Prasad Eye Institute, the Nuclear Fuel Complex and National Institute of Nutrition.

People who represent each of the mentioned organizations above stood up and talked about the cool things they’re working on or enabling others to do. The event ended with a standing ovation forRamesh Loganathan for his outstanding contribution and effort towards the Hyderabadstartup ecosystem. Stay tuned for what is to come out of this. In the meantime, visit Hyderabad4Innovation.in for more info.