T-Hub Launches Lab32 Program to Ensure Strategic Growth of Startups
T-Hub, India's fastest growing startup engine, announced that it is introducing a cohort-based incubation program - Lab32, to ensure strategic growth of startups in the country. The program aims to support the government’s ‘Startup India Initiative’ by directing entrepreneurship, innovation and addressing the challenges faced by startups.
“The program will help us solve two main challenges in the startup ecosystem. First is the level of market understanding that startups bring in, and second is the lack of market appetite analysis for their offerings” said Jay Krishnan, CEO, T-Hub.
The six month-admission program will comprise two functional pillars:
1. Playbook - A tool developed in-house by T-Hub’s technology team, which will be used for tracking growth and supporting robust scaling of the startups in the market.
2. Startup Buddy - A dedicated mentor for each startup, every day. The startup buddy assigned to each startup will be either an experienced investor, venture capitalist or a C-level startup leader.
“With this initiative, our startups will have access to a tool called ‘playbook’ that will allow them to be true incubatees. At the end of the first phase of program, startups will either graduate or stay back, based on how they measure up to the growth matrix. Accordingly, we will put them in the second phase of the program for another six months. We will ask every single entrepreneur at T-Hub to identify and tell us the top 10 things that they want to achieve and we will aim to help them hit all those before they graduate” added Krishnan.
Starting May 2018, the incubation program at T-Hub will entail a two-phased admission process – first phase of admission will be in the month of April and the second phase in the month of October, each year. The eligibility criteria for admission will be such that the startups would need to be market ready, should have at least one customer, and be a minimum of one-member team. If any startups miss on the admission once, they can re-apply. The admission can be for physical or virtual incubation, and the startup can be based anywhere in the world while still have access to T-Hub’s Startup Buddy, Playbook, other mentors, workshops, and seminars.
The existing startups at T-Hub will also need to re-apply through this admission process to be a part of Lab32. All the applications and re-applications will be evaluated by the T-Hub team for admissions. In total, 100 startup admissions are open currently, which brings in seats for 800-1000 entrepreneurs through physical incubation.
T-Hub’s goal is to promote technology-based startups, primarily focused on HealthTech, FinTech, Smart Cities, Transportation and Sustainability. The cohort-based and revenue-driven program aims to make an impact on about more than 100 startups every year.
Applications are open now https://t-hub.co/incubation/ and close on April 15, 2018.
The name Lab 32 originated due to its significance in science and technology (i.e. 32-bit microprocessors). Since T-Hub has technology at its core, it is the best representation of what we are trying to do with this tailor-made program that is sure to set a benchmark for other incubators. On a lighter note, we are based out of Gachibowli (500032) in Hyderabad.
