AP will develop Silicon Valley-like ecosystem for startups: APIS CEO

By spreading startup culture through hand-holding, mentoring and helping startups get required funding, the Andhra Pradesh government is keen on developing Silicon Valley-type success stories across the State, according to AP Innovation Society CEO Anil Kumar Tentu.

He said the thrust of the govt’s multi-pronged approach is to validate scalable business models by the startup entrepreneurs. After the resolve expressed at the World Economic Forum annual meeting at Davos and the subsequent Global Investors’ Summit held in Visakhapatnam in March this year, Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy and IT &Industries Minister Gudivada Amarnath are also working hard to bring several unicorns to AP, he added. The AP government is also aiming at translating the ideas and dreams of youngsters into billion dollar companies by commercialising the business models developed by their startups, he told Bizz Buzz in an exclusive interview

What are the highlights of the New Industrial Development Policy for spreading the startup culture?

The policy intends to encourage innovations to enhance the startup ecosystem. Talented youngsters will be provided the right facilities and support system to innovate and pursue their entrepreneurial talent. ‘Catching the talent young,’ has become the buzzword as the youngsters are the future for the nation in general and the State in particular. We are keen on establishing entrepreneurship clubs and incubation centres in certain technical institutions as a pilot project. The government has already announced setting up I-Space, a state of the art innovation and startup zone in an area of three lakh sqfeet in Visakhapatnam with an aim to create technopreneurs in various functional domains such as IPR and patent registration, legal services, sourcing funds through angel investors and venture capitalists, branding and marketing.

What is the mandate of AP Innovation Society?

The society was set up under the Registration Act-2001 in 2015. It is a nodal agency headquartered in Visakhapatnam to promote the growth of innovation, entrepreneurship and startup ecosystem across the entire State. It is mandated to act as network of networks for incubators and startups as well as holding bootcamps at various colleges/management schools to pep up the spirit of young minds towards innovation and doing something different. We at APIS extend our wholehearted support and cooperation to the startups, incubators, accelerators, mentors, investors and other stakeholders and enablers to create a vibrant startup ecosystem.

What are your achievements so far?

We have 30 incubators across the State with a strong network of over 500 startups and as many as around 250 IPRs. We have 1,360 DPIIT-registered startups. We are in the process of creating 560 plus Entrepreneurship Innovation Startup Cells (EISC) with the support of AP State Council of Higher Education (APSCHE).I must mention that Andhra Pradesh is the first State to announce Innovation and Startup Policy for 2021-23 under which we are giving plug and play space for a minimum two-seater to a maximum 20-seater up to a period of six months to two years. We are providing well-equipped shared infrastructure to startups to operate at an affordable price with subsidy and in the process, are establishing Centres of Excellence (CoEs). Nasscom, Indian Institute of Management-Visakhapatnam and other reputed institutes have already set up CoEs to encourage students to become entrepreneurs. The CoEs are encouraging emerging technologies like IoT, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, cybersecurity, cloud computing and robotics.

What are the services you are offering?

We are getting encouraging responses to the services offered by APIS. We are offering subsidised incubation space to startups at Visakhapatnam, which has a good presence of IT and ITeS units, the second largest after Hyderabad in undivided Andhra Pradesh, Kakinada, Tirupati and Vijayawada. As part of product prototyping, we patronage out-of-the box ideas by the startups and concepts nurtured into viable prototypes. We facilitate market access by giving government orders. Mentoring the startups with domain experts from the industries and academic institutes is being done as part of our determination to offer hand-holding-a crucial prerequisite for success of any budding entrepreneur. Access to seed funding is extended through a plethora of schemes and programmes being offered by the State Government and the Government of India. As legal guidance and patenting are required, we are offering required support for protecting intellectual property rights. On the whole, the government is laying a new roadmap after finalising the blueprint for ensuring scripting of success stories by the startups.

Have you identified focus areas for startups?

We have focused on verticals which include IT/ITeS, medtech, logistics and supply chain management, defence, agritech and product development.

Visakhapatnam is very often described as the IT capital of Andhra Pradesh. Can you please elaborate on your contribution to develop innovation culture in and around the city?

At the APIS Incubation Tower at the Innovation Valley in the city at Rushikonda, we have incubated 36 startups. We have 335 seats out of which 265 have been allotted. Presently, 60 seats are open to allotment subject to fulfilment of requirements. We are offering a subsidy of Rs2,500 per seat. Our centre has plug and play provision with high-speed bandwidth, halls for conferences and meetings, cabins and cafeteria with Wi-Fi.We have successfully incubated several marque startups which include Antar IoT (with revenue of Rs.1.07 crore in 2021-22), Saif Automation Services LLP (two patents with products of life saving buoy with remote control water drones), GCRS (revenue of Rs.4.25 crore in 2021-22)and BOTCLUB (practical sciences physical models and AR content applications). We are also credited with highly successful incubation for startups like Robocoupler, AtFingerTip, LaMisma Luna, The Verticals and Aismartlive Solution.Under TIDE 2.0, we have incubated the following startups: Elecxion Energy, 8th Sense Technologies, Sri Krishna Espike and Vedansh Innovations. We are also offering incubation in virtual mode to some of the startups making advantage of the emerging technologies. Incubation Towers at Kakinada, Vijayawada and Tirupati (currently with AP Electronics and IT Agency-APEITA) have also several success stories to tell.

What is the infrastructure space available at Incubation Centres across the State?

APIS has its own building in Visakhapatnam with 51,213 sqfeet. APIS-Kakinada has a building with 6,300 sqfeet. Vijayawada has a leased space of 2,300 sqfeet whereas APIS has handed over its building to APEITA with a space of 6,300 sqfeet.

How many incubators do we have in the State?

Besides our (APIS) incubators at Visakhapatnam, Kakinada, Tirupati and Vijayawada, we have incubators operated by AIC-SKU Confederation at Anantapur, IIT Innovation and Incubation Foundation at Tirupati, ANGRAU Aided Cell at Tirupati, A-Hub-Andhra University Incubation Center in Visakhapatnam, Centre for Innovation & Entrepreneurship Development at IIIT, Sri City, SPMVV-Women Biotech Incubation Facility, Tirupati, SPMVV Society for Innovation, Incubation & Entrepreneurship Technology Business Incubator, Tirupati, Nasscom CoE on AI & IoT-Visakhapatnam, IIMV Foundation for Incubation Entrepreneurial Learning & Development-Visakhapatnam and KL Incubation Centre, Vijayawada.

What are your plans to establish more CoEs?

We have plans to have 20 CoEs in innovation in the next five years in association with the central government, various organisations, industries and academia. These centres will come up in the niche technologies such as AI, Metaverse (augmented/virtual reality), green energy, 5G technologies and use cases, semiconductor design, electrical mobility, energy storage, IoT, blockchain, cybersecurity and drones.The government will support such CoEs with a grant of two crore rupees over a period of five years. We want to have these facilities at our incubators or the incubation centres that have come outside or on the premises offered by various industries and universities/colleges and other academic institutes.

What are the innovation challenges being conducted by you?

To spot talent, we conducted the Fintech Innovation Challenge last year. We have an AP Startup One portal to provide the opportunity to curate and run innovation challenges/hackathons to offer solutions to the problems faced by the government departments in their day-to-day activities. In coordination with the departments concerned, we want to hold at least one challenge/hackathon every quarter. The solutions found will be implemented to improve the delivery mechanism and effective citizen engagement in governance.