The National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom), which kick-started the operations of its warehouse at the Sunrise Incubation Hub here at Rushikonda over one year ago (the first such initiative in Andhra Pradesh), has decided to increase its activity in Visakhapatnam.
Exuding confidence that the city had all the ingredients to emerge as a prominent startup hub, Nasscom Regional Director for AP and Telangana Srikanth Srinivasan told The Hindu on Friday that they wanted to use the expertise of their member-companies across the country, and deploy them to help not only the startups but also SMEs to leverage huge opportunities available post -demonetisation.
As on date, the warehouse, which provides co-working space and hand-holding for the startups by facilitating mentorship and funding by angel investors and venture capitalists, has incubated five startups in the first batch. While three have moved out after successful product launch, five new teams have been selected for incubation. Four startups are being incubated on virtual mode.
‘Ideation improves’
“The quality of pitching in ideas by prospective entrepreneurs has undergone remarkable improvement from what we had encountered initially when we wanted to select teams with out-of-the-box ideas,” Mr. Srinivasan said.
Following an MoU signed with the Government of AP, Nasscom has been provided 8,000 sft of built-up space at the Sunrise Incubation Hub. In the long run, it can house around 25 startups with 75-seat capacity.
The topics chosen by Nasscom to conduct interactive sessions by domain experts include product management, user experiences, social media marketing, IP rights, protection management, negotiated skills, and GST. It also has plans to visit colleges and universities to clarify the doubts of students on requirement for kick-starting a startup.
Thrust areas
With the State government deciding to focus on fintech startups in Visakhapatnam, Mr. Srinivasan said there was bright future for operations in blockchain, business analytics, artificial intelligence, cyber security, and cloud computing.
On social media, he said the startups need to be active on the digital front.
“Facebook and Linkedin have 500 million subscribers. Social media marketing will be used by five to six billion by 2020,” he said, underlining the need to gain expertise in digital marketing by young entrepreneurs.
Nasscom manager for Telangana Vijay Bawra and his counterpart for Andhra Pradesh Baargav Duggirala said the response to their campaign to educate students on how to inculcate startup culture in and around Visakhapatnam was quite encouraging.
