THE GREAT ENABLER

WITH THE WORLD'S LARGEST INNOVATION CAMPUS AT ITS DISPOSAL, T-HUB IS BEGINNING TO PLAY A PIVOTAL ROLE IN TURBOCHARGING HYDERABAD'S START-UP ECOSYSTEM

- BINU PAUL

A CHANCE ENCOUNTER with a neighbour. An unexpected conversation, and off the two guys went to beat their start-up idea into shape. Once ready, Sandeep Bommireddi and Sravanth Gajula—Cofounders of AdOnMo that operates digital-out-of-home ad boards—pitched their idea to the mentors at T-Hub. But as fate would have it, their first application was shot down.

But the co-founders who had met while working for Microsoft, were not ready to give up just yet. They knew that getting into T-Hub—that was operating from a 70,000 sq. ft facility located within the International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) Hyderabad campus back then—would prove to be a game changer for their start-up. After months of persistent efforts, the start-up was finally admitted into one of the cohorts that T-Hub 1.0 was running.

“We had to apply multiple times to get into T-Hub. It took us a good seven to eight months,” Bommireddi says, adding that the opportunities inside the hub exceeded their expectations.

Although the programmes being offered by T-Hub at the time had not evolved into the structured set of modules it offers today, the budding entrepreneurs found enough guidance that they could give live demos of their product at the investor interactions and industry connects that T-Hub organises regularly.

The big break for AdOnMo came in 2018 when a delegation from IKEA—that included Jesper Brodin, CEO of Ingka Group that operates the IKEA stores—was visiting the facility. Back then, the Swedish furniture giant was preparing to launch its first store in India, in Hyderabad, and the startup got an opportunity to showcase its products to IKEA. Within three months, AdOnMo, still in the pre-revenue stage, received an assignment to run IKEA’s marketing campaign for the launch.