Hyderabad's startup ecosystem: Founders share challenges, growth, and aspirations for the city's future

Today is National Startup Day — a day to celebrate creativity and innovations across industries. Five Hyderabadi startup founders give Nitika Krishna the city’s startup PICTURE
Hyderabad's startup ecosystem: Founders share challenges, growth, and aspirations for the city's future
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HYDERABAD: Startup around a decade ago, this word was still relatively new lingo in Hyderabad. But today, everywhere we look, startups are sprouting and blooming, producing great innovations for not just this city but the whole country and beyond. To a startup founder, his or her startup is a precious little plant, to be cared for and nourished through rain and shine. But what do Hyderabadi startup founders think about the startup soil in the city?

Kajal Rajbhar, founder of Spantrik

When people ask me why I founded Spantrik, I tell them this — I want to be part of a future where space is not just the domain of astronauts and engineers but of everyone. Spantrik is incubated at T-Hub and we are focusing on Leapfrogger, which is designed to test vertical takeoff and landing (VTVL) capabilities, paving the way for the development of India’s first reusable rocket. The aerospace journey is hardware-intensive, requiring significant resources and funding.

Venture capitalists are typically hesitant to invest in early-stage aerospace startups because commercial products are far from being realised and the R&D phase involves high risk and prolonged timelines. But T-Hub has offered great incubation support, and T-Works is also helping startups create prototypes, even with limited budgets. For a woman in the aerospace field, it can often feel like navigating through turbulent skies. But my message to every young girl out there is this — if I can do it, so can you.

Sunil Maddikatla, founder and CEO, EYVA

Incubated in T-Hub, EYVA is the world’s first health AI gadget that understands a user’s metabolic and cardiovascular health in detail, with the capability of non-invasive blood glucose monitoring. Startups here are all about doing business the Hyderabadi way — they are focused on profitability and sustainable growth. The city’s amazing infrastructure and talented workforce allow startups to operate with a touch of luxury while still keeping costs low.

But there are gaps in medtech that we need to address. Firstly, startups and innovations here deserve better recognition. Secondly, regulatory hurdles often slow things down. Imagine if Hyderabad, with its growing medtech hub, had a dedicated Centre of Excellence for healthtech regulation. This is where the Telangana government could play a game-changing role. Together, we can position Hyderabad as a global leader in healthtech and wellness.

Satish Reddy, CEO of Xbattery and Pascalcase

Xbattery is incubated at T-Hub and does prototyping at T-Works. We are building a cutting-edge battery management system called BharatBMS for energy storage devices and EVs.

With BharatBMS, we will produce printed circuit boards locally instead of importing from China. Pascalcase builds SaaS tools for data governance, data security, and business productivity. The first is a hardware company and the second is a software company — getting funding for software is easier than for hardware, which requires raw materials, testing equipment, and more.

But a common challenge is attracting good talent and matching the salaries offered by big corporates. However, Hyderabad’s startup ecosystem is much better than what it used to be; T-Hub has created awareness campaigns and the government is strongly invested in helping startups boom. It is my vision of sustainability that drives me — I believe technology has the power to save the planet. I encourage more Hyderabadis to pursue their dreams!

Hetendra Singh, founder of Segritech

SEGRITECH, founded by Sri Kusulu Devalla, Vijay Pratap Singh, and me, is a hardware AI company building solutions for post-harvest automation. We were initially incubated at CIE, IIIT-H, and then received T-Hub’s support. We recently launched Segritech Version One — the world’s first compact and movable smart sorting machine for fruits and vegetables. This machine grades and sorts fruits and vegetables based on colour, size, shape, and skin defects — at two tonnes per hour!

Hyderabad has a mature hardware ecosystem but the biggest challenge is the gap between farmers and the tech community. While farmers aren’t aware about technologies, agritech startups don’t do their research, often wanting to solve multiple problems all at once. If you want to be in agritech, don’t rush in to make money but rather empathise with farmers. My dream is to make Indian agriculture as prosperous as can be.

Ajayreddy Kobireddygari, founder of AIspire Labs

AIspire Labs uses foundation layer AI models like Gemini and OpenAI to build application layer AI products. Our aspiration is to make search simple and smart for users by leveraging generative and agentic AI systems. We are focusing on the education, D2C, SaaS, healthcare, and governance sectors. We recently released our first model, SARA V1, to replace boring chatbots; there has been great feedback and adoption. But a common challenge for AI startups is that while they build products of value for users, they are often unable to monetise their innovations. Such startups need more industry partnerships and government support, apart from advisors who can help them navigate the ecosystem better. AI startups just need that little push…let’s make Hyderabad the AI capital of India!

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