Open innovation platform Plug and Play to set foot in Hyderabad

Hyderabad Soon after the leadership team from Plug and Play (PnP) Tech Center met with delegation from Telangana in Paris, the world's largest innovation platform announced to launch their first center in India at Hyderabad. Its team said that the center will be officially launched in Hyderabad during the first week of December in the presence of Telangana IT Minister KT Rama Rao, and Plug and Play Founder and CEO Saeed Amidi

PnP leadership team Omeed Mehrinfahr, MD & Co-head EMEA from the Paris office, Sascha Karimpour, MD Germany & Startup Autobahn from the Stuttgart Center, and Hannah Boomgarden, Program Director Startup Autobahn met with the delegation including Telangana IT Minister KT Rama Rao, Principal Secretary Jayesh Ranjan, and Chief Relations Officer Amarnath Reddy Atmakuri at the French Senate in Paris, France.

They had discussions for opening up the location in Hyderabad. The meeting was held on the sidelines of the Ambition India event hosted by French Government and Business France. PnP's network includes over 35,000 vetted startups globally in its Playbook and over 530 global corporations, and 1,500 active portfolio investments that have raised $9 billion in venture funding.

On the occasion, KT Rama Rao said, "This is a great boost to the innovation ecosystem in Telangana, which is prominently known for the Thub, the India's largest startup incubator. We have been able to attract several major investments in the mobility sector in the recent past including ZF, Fiat Chrysler/ Stellantis, and are in the process of creating a world class mobility ecosystem in partnership with several OEMs and tier-1 suppliers."

"Innovation is the key driver for growth of this sector and we are glad that PnP has chosen Hyderabad for its entry into India. Telangana is also moving up in its value chain in the areas of healthcare, IoT, energy, and fintech and we look forward to the collaboration with PnP to play a major role," he added.

PnP has accelerated 2,056 startups in the year 2020 (585 in US, 438 in EMEA, and 1,042 in Asia). The company made 162 strategic investments in 2020. It prominently is the early investor in Google, PayPal, Dropbox, LendingClub, N26, Soundhound, Honey, Kustomer, and Guardant Health. It focuses on several verticals including mobility, IoT, energy, agritech, health, sustainability, travel and fintech.

In Hyderabad, PnP will be focusing on building the ecosystem for mobility, IoT, energy, and infrastructure. The next step would be to expand to fintech and life sciences/ healthcare. Seattle-based Triangulum Labs, a venture foundry will be partnering with Plug and Play in Hyderabad to run the incubation for the IoT and smart cities.

Sascha Karimpour, MD of Startup Autobahn Germany said: "With the enthusiasm and the support that the IT Minister KT Rama Rao has shown, PnP will build the most successful collaboration platform in India and emulate the success of Startup Autobahn in Germany, in record time, became an international epicentre for new tech collaboration between established corporations and tech startups in the mobility sector."

Omeed Mehrinfahr, the MD & Co-head of Europe, Middle East and Africa said: "In Hyderabad we like to start focus on the topics mobility, IoT, energy and infrastructure and in the next step possibly expand to fintech and health. For each of these verticals we will invite leading industrial companies from India and PnP's international network (500+ leading international companies) to help accelerate innovation efforts."

PnP has 37 offices worldwide including Silicon Valley in the USA, Stuttgart in Germany, Paris in France, Osaka in Japan, Shanghai in China and several other countries. The main goals for the PnP in India would be to build the biggest hub for startups, corporates and investors. It will partner with leading corporations from India and accelerate their startup collaboration. It will invest in Indian startups and introduce its network of leading international VC's.