HYDERABAD: In 2021, the State government is going to introduce industry-specific policies for startups in view of the hardships faced by the startup ecosystem due to the pandemic, IT and Industries minister KT Rama Rao told The New Indian Express.
"This year, in view of the unprecedented times, brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic, the Telangana government is going to introduce sector-specific policies for startups and nurture an innovation ecosystem in the space of Emerging Technologies and Social Impact," Rama Rao said.
Startups, like most business enterprises, faced unprecedented challenges due to the pandemic and subsequent lockdown in the country. According to T-Hub CEO Ravi Narayan, worldwide, around 15 per cent of startups have halted operations, and many more may do so in the coming days.
"Around 44 per cent of startups have cash for less than 6 months at the moment. Among them, many will shut down. Seed-stage deals have dropped the most. Institutional fundings have dropped by 30 per cent in Q2," Narayan told Express.
However, according to experts, the startup ecosystem is in the recovery stage, and the coming year would far much better for the sector in Telangana. "The Telangana government has launched various initiatives over the last six years to promote a culture of entrepreneurship and startups in the state. The creation and the growth of organizations such as T-Hub, TSIC, RICH, We-Hub, T-Works, and Emerging Technologies wing stand testimony to the commitment of the Telangana government towards boosting the startup ecosystem," Rama Rao said.
Giving an insight into the recovery level of the startup ecosystem T-Hub CEO Ravi Narayan said that it was the travel and hospitality related startups that ook a lot of hits but it has opened up chances in the ed-tech and health tech domain. has taken a lot of hits.
As for T-Hub, Narayan said that the startup incubator will be concentrating on spreading its wings to Tier 2 cities. "We are beginning to do a lot more work in tier 2 cities and IT tower. We are already in Warangal. The places are going to be managed by TSIC, but the curriculum the intervention through mentors are going to happen through T-Hub," he said.
Devang Mehta, Partner at Anthill Ventures, a Hyderabad-based investment and scaling platform said that the company split startups based on the degree at which they were affected due to the pandemic. Mehta said, "Overall funding environment took a big hit because of the pandemic, except for the startups in healthcare or ed-tech. For the prior investments that we had made, we made sure that the startups had a plane to ride out the pandemic."