The world’s largest leading innovation platform Plug and Play Tech Center will be launching their Center in Hyderabad. The announcement came after their leadership team met with Minister KTR in Paris
The leadership team from Plug and Play, Mr. Omeed Mehrinfahr, MD & Co-head EMEA from the Paris office, Mr. Sascha Karimpour, MD Germany & Startup Autobahn from the Stuttgart Center, and Hannah Boomgarden, Program Director Startup Autobahn met with the delegation from the state of Telangana including Mr. K. T. Rama Rao, the Minister, the Principal Secretary, Mr. Jayesh Ranjan, and the Chief Relations Officer, Mr. Amarnath Reddy Atmakuri, at the French Senate in Paris, France and 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.
Plug And Play’s network includes over 35,000 vetted startups globally in it’s Playbook and 530+ world-leading corporations, and 1,500 active portfolio investments as on date who have raised 9 Billion USD in venture funding. It has 37 offices worldwide including Silicon Valley in the USA, Stuttgart in Germany, Paris in France, Osaka in Japan, Shanghai in China, Valencia in Spain, Amsterdam in Netherlands, and several other countries.
Plug and Play has accelerated 2,056 startups in the year 2020 (585 in USA, 438 in EMEA, and 1,042 in Asia). The company made 162 strategic investments in the year 2020. Plug And Play 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, Fintech, etc.
In the city of Hyderabad, Plug And Play 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 Tech Center in Hyderabad to run the Incubation for the IoT and Smart Cities.
Sascha Karimpour, the MD for the Germany and Startup Autobahn said “With the enthusiasm and the support that the Minister KT Rama Rao has shown, Plug And Play will build the most successful collaboration platform in India and emulate the success of the Startup Autobahn in Germany, which 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.”
The main goals for the Plug And Play in India would be to build India’s best and biggest hub for startups, corporates and investors.
• Partner with leading corporations from India and internationally to accelerate their startup collaboration (scouting, POC’s, implementations)
• Become the gateway for Indian startups to work efficiently with leading corporations and be able to expand internationally (through PnP network)
• Become a platform where innovative cutting-edge solution can be developed through cross-collaboration and enable know-how transfer internationally (through PnP network)
• Plug and Play will invest in Indian startups and introduce it’s network of leading international VC’s
Minister K. T. Rama Rao has welcomed this development and quoted, “This is a great boost to the innovation ecosystem in the state of 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-I suppliers. Innovation is the key driver for growth of this sector and we are glad that Plug And Play has chosen Hyderabad for it’s entry into India. Telangana is also moving up in it’s value chain in the areas of Healthcare, IoT, Energy, and Fintech and we look forward to the collaboration with Plug And Play to play a major role.”
The executives from Plug And Play have announced that they will be officially launching the Plug And Play center in Hyderabad in the first week of December in the presence of the Minister K. T. Rama Rao, and the Founder and CEO of Plug And Play, Saeed Amidi.
