IT industry body Nasscom on Thursday said it is looking at establishing 'Startup Warehouses' across the country to help entrepreneurs collaborate and develop a culture of innovation.
"We have approached various state governments, including Karnataka, Delhi and Andhra Pradesh. We have received a very positive feedback and are hopeful of the first Startup Warehouse coming up in the next 15-20 days," Nasscom Vice-President Rajiv Vaishnav told reporters.
He, however, declined to give further details.
"The state government will provide the required funds or can allocate land. The operations of the place will be managed by Nasscom," he said.
Nasscom started its "10,000 start-ups" programme in April this year with an aim to nurture new technology companies across the country. The initiative is supported by Google, Kotak, Microsoft and Verisign.
The body plans to take about 15 start-ups to the Silicon Valley to meet venture capitalists, accelerators and other technology start-ups
Nasscom said it has received around 14,000 applications (representing about 4,000 companies), of which 332 have been shortlisted. These shortlisted applicants will be further screened based on quality of team members and revenue potential of the product developed.
Despite having a vibrant investment landscape, Mumbai ranks as a distant third (at 10%) behind Bangalore (23 per cent) and Delhi NCR (20 per cent) in terms of the number of applications.
"Pune, on the other hand, is emerging as a strong contender. It accounted for six per cent of the applications received and 8 per cent start-ups from Pune made it in the short-lists," Vaishnav said.
About 63 per cent applications came from people under the age of 30 and about 12 per cent applicants were women. A whopping 60 per cent of the applications came for web/Internet start-ups, followed by mobile start-ups (24 per cent).
