Telangana's initiative to help start-ups with post-Covid rejig draws good response

Rejig.HydStartups, an initiative by the Telangana State Innovation Cell (TSIC) and T-Incubators & Enablers to support start-ups in reimagining and repositioning their business model post-Covid-19 pandemic, has received more than 300 applications and 100 start-ups have been selected to be part of the mentoring programme, it was announced today.

Rejig.HydStartups is spread out in three-weeks of mentoring to help start-ups connect with investors or gain corporate market access, will see a three-pronged approach — understanding the concerns of the start-up with a completion of leg work assigned by the mentor, understanding the change of strategy, and a revised pitch.

The programme will culminate in a massive pitch day event where the start-ups will be pitching for equity funding, collateral-free debt funding, or corporate market access.

The start-ups selected were from domains like life-sciences, fintech, manufacturing, agriculture, FMCG, emerging technology.

A webinar involving ecosystem catalysts, was organised to understand the impact of the pandemic on the start-ups and expectations from the founders to become resilient.

"Hyderabad will be standing out for its city as a whole through this important initiative Rejig.HydStartups to support the start-ups in coming weeks to become resilient post-pandemic. Even the applications that we received was a truly relevant mixture of industry sectors that require immediate attention," said Jayesh Ranjan, Principal Secretary, Information Technology, Telangana government

The webinar also saw a panel discussion involving Ravi Narayan, CEO of T-Hub & CIO of TSIC, Sridhar Pinnapureddy, Founder Chairman of CtrlS Datacenters, currently the President of TIE Hyderabad, Sateesh Andra, Managing Director of Endiya Partners, an established VC and investor. Panel was moderated by Deepanwita Chattopadhyay, CEO of IKP Knowledge Park.

The speakers gave their experiential insights and urged the startups to relook at their business models and be willing to reimagine during the toughest crisis.

Some of the steps founders could take range from identifying the alternate market for the existing product or service, rationalising the product or service, smart cost optimisation, to look out for answers by discussing with the customers, mentors, and investors.

One of the important mentions by all the panellists towards betterment was founders' resilience, the fact that the investments largely are done based on the strength of the business model and quality of the human capital.

Chattopadhyay said that it is a great opportunity not just for startups but also for the incubators and enablers to collectively contribute to the start-up ecosystem in the times when mentor access is important for founders to get a sounding board..