T-Hub, which leads India’s pioneering innovation ecosystem, announced its partnership with Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), NITI Aayog to foster innovation and entrepreneurship across the healthcare sectors. As a part of this partnership, T-Hub is running a three-month cohort-based program AIC T-Hub Foundation, exclusively for the deep tech startups creating new-age solutions in the field of life sciences and healthcare.
The program was officially launched virtually in the presence of Jayesh Ranjan, Principal Secretary, IT & Industries, Telangana, Dr. Chintan Vaishnav, Mission Director of AIM, Ravi Narayan, CEO of T-Hub and Chief Innovation Officer of Telangana, and Sashi Reddi, Founder and Managing Partner of SRI Capital.
A key goal of the program is to provide access to elite resources and experts to startups. This will immensely help the founders with assistance in refining their business plans, market insights, and commercialization strategies
Jayesh Ranjan, Principal Secretary, IT and Industries, Telangana, said, “Telangana has been at the forefront of promoting the usage and development of new-age technologies. The state acknowledges the significant contribution T-Hub has made to the creation of a thriving innovation ecosystem. With T-Hub’s partnership with Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), we are further advancing and supporting cutting edge technology in the healthcare and life science sectors. A key goal of the program is to provide access to elite resources and experts to startups. This will immensely help the founders with assistance in refining their business plans, market insights, and commercialization strategies.”
Ravi Narayan, CEO of T-Hub, said, “The future of the healthcare is largely dependent on the technological innovation to ensure superior accuracy in diagnosis and treatment. To achieve exactly that drive for innovation, we have partnered work with Atal Innovation Mission for the T-Hub AIC program. The program is tailor-made to benefit HealthTech startups at an early stage and help them get a direction to commercialise their products by making it market-ready at the global level.”
10 deep tech startups have been handpicked after an extensive screening process by T-Hub, AIM and external industry experts. The startups were selected based on their cutting-edge DeepTech innovation for healthcare and life sciences, go-to market readiness, scalability, team composition, etc. The program is focused on providing startups with world-class experts and resources to sharpen their understanding of markets, refine their business and product commercialization plans.
Sashi Reddi, Founder and Managing Partner of SRI Capital said, “Covid has shown us the significant shortcomings of our current healthcare system. While some of these challenges can be addressed with more government funding, many of these challenges can only be addressed with innovation. Organizations like T-Hub with its AIC program are a key catalyst to work with founders and startups to help them leverage their innovation to bring high quality healthcare to every corner of India.”
With a goal-oriented approach, T-Hub and AIM are working with the startups to identify their next inflection point that changes the trajectory of the startup. We are proud to have industry experts and active angel investors Dr. Vinayendra Tulla, Executive Director – Aditya Hospitals and Mr. Venkat Raju, serial entrepreneur from the valley as Super Mentors guiding the startups of the cohort to reach their potential.
Startup progress will be evaluated throughout the program against the identified inflection point while enabling the startup to achieve the inflection point. Three months of structured interventions has been initiated virtually which will be followed by three months of post program support from the ecosystem, to achieve this goal. The interventions include rich curriculum of online activities like workshop and speaker series by subject matter experts, along with one-on-one mentorship sessions from successful entrepreneurs and industry veterans.
The workshop series will cover subjects like product-readiness, value proposition, customer profiling, and sales pitch, lead generation, financial planning, and funding avenues. Whereas speaker series will touch up on topics like future of digital healthcare infrastructure, understanding private healthcare, domestic and global compliance framework, US/International healthcare market and opportunities and challenges of a healthcare startup.
Benefits that startups are receiving from the program include:
- Opportunity to connect, interact and collaborate with leading professionals and industry players in the healthcare ecosystem.
- Access to mentors, domain experts, speakers, and startup founders to receive customized guidance on business strategy, product commercialization and chance to learn from the journeys of the successful startups.
- Access to premium network of service providers and avail a range of essential resources and services.
- Access to T-Hub and Atal Innovation Mission network to gain visibility and interact with thought leaders, innovators, serial entrepreneurs, and gain rich learning experience.
- Investor connects from T-Hub and Atal Incubation Center (AIC) network and pitch the product and solution to explore funding opportunities.
- Continued support & engagement with the program team to track the progress and receive the necessary support.
The launch of the second cohort comes after the successful completion of the first cohort which was conducted as a pilot for this program. T-Hub and AIM worked with selected healthcare startups from the existing robust ecosystem which acted as a testbed for the program. The startups benefited immensely with right investor connects, mentorship and guidance which enabled them in scaling up and securing fund-raising opportunities.
Testimonial from the pilot cohort of the program:
Suresh Susurla, CEO and Managing Director of Startoon Labs Pvt. Ltd said, “Dedicated one-one mentorship with experts has helped us get clarity on strategies of moving ahead during the tough times. Most importantly, the connections made with the right investors at the right time, and handholding during the fund-raising phase has undoubtedly been the biggest support offered by AIC T-Hub and this helped us scale with a successful round of fund raise.
“MedTech startups have their own challenges of commercialization. Gestation period for the products is usually long because of involved clinical studies and other regulatory aspects. Mentorship and guidance from industry experts is mandatory. AIC T-Hub has the needed expertise to guide the MedTech startups in their journey. I strongly recommend the startups to get associated with AIC T-Hub. This will ensure the startup is moving ahead in the right direction under expert mentorship, in all aspects of the startup’s journey.”
