Telangana startup incubator WE Hub, exclusively for women, to be launched on March 8

The announcement was made by KTR during an interaction with Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) - Southern Regional Council Members on Saturday.

WE Hub, a startup incubator for women, announced by Telangana’s IT minister KT Rama Rao in December, will be officially launched on international Women’s Day on March 8.

The announcement was made by KTR during an interaction with Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) — Southern Regional Council Members on Saturday.

KTR originally announced WE Hub on the last day of Global Entrepreneurship Summit as an exclusive startup incubator for women, which will also be run by women.

WE Hub will be similar to Hyderabad-based T-Hub, which is currently the country’s largest startup incubator for technology startups. KTR has said that the intention is to create an entity with government support, while supporting women entrepreneurs with funding and infrastructure. 

T-Hub is a public/private partnership between the government of Telangana, India’s premier academic institutes IIIT, ISB and Nalsar University and key private sector leaders.

WE Hub will be a separate entity, independent of T-Hub, but will run on similar lines.

The Telangana govt had also announced a venture capital fund with a corpus of Rs 15 crore to fund women startups and enterprises. The investment, which will be handled by the industries and commerce department of the Telangana government, will be anywhere between Rs 25 lakh to Rs 1 crore in startups run by women. This will be done in partnership with T-Fund, which is the investment partner to T-Hub.

“We have set a new benchmark with T-Hub for other states. This is another path breaking initiative of Telangana government, which is going to set a new trend of supporting women entrepreneurs. We will create a facility where women feel exactly like T-Hub and we will ensure that with WE Hub, we follow all ingredients that have made T-Hub a success, while keeping it exclusive for women,” KTR told reporters during the GES media meet.

WE Hub will also receive support from NITI Aayog, which will partner with WE Hub through the central government’s Atal innovation Mission.

T-Hub is currently India’s largest startup incubator Spread over 70,000 square feet, housing over 200 startups. It is in the process of building its next phase, which will be spread over 3 lakh square feet. The second phase of T-Hub will be the largest incubator in Asia and second largest incubator in the world.