Close to a year after the launch of AP Innovation and Start Up policy, Andhra Pradesh is taking steady and firm steps towards becoming the breeding State for start up companies in the IT and IT enabled services and allied sectors.

With the two incubator towers in Visakhapatnam and Kakinada in place with reputed pilot incubators in charge, the third incubator tower in Tirupati will be inaugurated by IT Minister Palle Raghunatha Reddy on August 5.

In Visakhapatnam incubator tower at Rishikonda built by APIIC started functioning in December, 2014 under the guidance of Kochi based pilot incubator Mob Mee Start Up village which pioneered the start-up concept.

In the last six months, 115 start-up companies have come up working on mobile applications and innovative product development ideas.

The mandate of the empanelled incubators is to promote the culture of innovation among the start-up units while the State is looking at creating world class eco-system and lay strong foundation to make a mark in IT product development, department sources said.

Recently Intel and C-Dac organised training programmes for the start-ups in Visakhapatnam working on ideas and products related to their domain expertise.

The government has also been extending some financial assistance to the pilot incubator on behalf of each start-up unit for organising training programmes and promoting the products and ideas once they reach a certain stage of development to attract venture capitalist and angel investors.

Of 50,000 sft space in the Vizag incubator tower, Mob Mee has taken up 15,000 sft while Govind Capital, Singapore based pilot incubator recently acquired 2,500 sft and has now six start-ups working in the facility. The Vizag facility is named as Technology, Research and Innovation Park.

The IT Department will have another five floor tower to be named Millennium Tower with three lakh sft space that will come up in a four-acre land adjacent to the Rishikonda incubation tower. The first two floors will be for start-up units and the rest of three floors will be allotted for companies.

In Kakinada where the incubation tower was inaugurated on June 30, the Bhubaneswar based private pilot incubator KIIT-TBI, already brought in 25 start-up companies.

A start-up unit comprising fresh and final year engineering graduates will take on an average of one-and-a-half year to two years to work on their product and idea before it attracts the attention of venture capitalists and angel investors, sources said.

IT Minister to inaugurate incubation tower in Tirupati on Aug. 5

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> National> Andhra Pradesh / by Special Correspondent / Hyderabad – August 01st, 2015