Stumped by startup rankings, Telangana to lodge protest with Centre

HYDERABAD: India’s startup state Telangana boasts of quite a few innovative firsts in the country’s incubation space, be it the country’s largest incubator T-Hub, first state-led exclusive women’s incubator WE HUB or even the first government-led maker’s lab T-Works.
Yet, it has scored a zero in three out of the seven pillars on which states were judged in the second edition of the States’ Startup Rankings 2019 by Union ministry of commerce and industry. State has decided to lodge a protest with Centre over rankings.

Telangana scored zero in ‘incubation support’, venture funding support and ‘seed funding support’ and a measly 1% in ‘awareness and outreach’ leaving the government and startup ecosystem stumped.
“I’m very surprised as there is enough action on the incubation and connectivity to capital front in Telangana. The score definitely cannot be zero on those counts,” said Sateesh Andra, MD of Hyderabad-based VC firm Endiya Partners. While professor Ramesh Loganathan, head of research outreach and innovation, IIITH, said data does not seem to have been “viewed or collected right”, former TiE Global Board trustee Murali Bukkapatnam said many of these rankings have an inherent bias and don’t reflect the correct picture at times. “I was shocked to see Telangana score zero and Gujarat get 100% on incubation support as support we got in Hyderabad is phenomenally higher than what we received in cities like Bengaluru and Ahmedabad, said T-Hub incubated startup BlueSemi’s founder Sunil Kumar Maddikatla.” “There are four pillars where Telangana has not been scored correctly. We have have already informed Startup India’s state coordinator that we will be registering a protest,” said Telangana IT & industries principal secretary Jayesh Ranjan.
“Telangana has demonstrated results with women-led enterprises, who have received various support mechanisms, but it’s a bit of a downer that these are not reflected in final outcomes,” said Deepthi Ravula, CEO, WE HUB, Telangana government. State officials said report states only one seat has been allocated to incubation in state though it has 10 state-supported incubators offering a host of facilities to startups.