Publication Name: DNA
Date: October 6, 2013
Tata Elxsi offers startups 18 month mentorship programme.
Technology startups can now head towards another incubation programme wherein everything from an office facility, to infrastructure, to mentoring will be provided.
Started by Whitefield-based design company Tata Elxsi, the 18 month programme will take place at their facility on Old Airport Road, where startups can get mentored, advised, and connected with investors and venture capitalists.
Entrepreneurs could also look at utilising the space for their day-to-day functioning.
"The idea is to support startups who look promising and can make it big by providing them with the basics needed to fly. The mentoring can help them plan ahead on how to structure their ideas. We have technologists, software experts, designers who can guide them," says Nick Talbot, Global Design Head, Tata Elxsi.
IT industry body Nasscom opened its warehouse in the city in August for early stage startups to work together, share their learnings, and avail of a common infrastructure that includes 70 seats and 4 meeting rooms.
According to Nasscom, the model for a warehouse for startups is to identify a central, well-connected, plug-and-play working space, and offer it to entrepreneurs for their first six months of operations.
“Often budding entrepreneurs have to run from pillar-to-post to get things like high bandwidth internet connection. It proves expensive to find a decent place to put up the first office and acquire infrastructure like audio-video conferencing facility etc,” says Phanindra Sama, a city based entrepreneur who had started redBus.
Talbot says they expect startups to be up and well established by the end of the programme.