VIZAG - A true city of destiny for Startups

Visakhapatnam - City of  Destiny

Vizag is one of the budding startup ecosystems in India. After the state got bifurcated into two, Vizag became the largest cosmopolitan city of new Andhra Pradesh with people residing from states like Andhra, Telangana, Odisha, West Bengal & Gujarat. As a budding startup ecosystem, Vizag has lots of scope for startups across various verticals.  

Vizag is rich in natural landscapes like long sea beaches, Mountains & Trekking spots which makes it most apt location for adventure sports startups. Apart from these Vizag is also a good tourism spot with places to visit like Rishikonda, Kailashgiri hills, Kambalkonda, Aruka valley & Borra caves,  Red Sand hills, Dolphin nose mountain, Naval Base, Coffee plantations and Historic Temples. This makes Vizag a good location for Tourism Startups too.

Vizag has almost 150 Engineering & MBA colleges including larger institutions like IIM Vizag, GITAM, GVP & Andhra University. Vizag is also a hub for over 300 Schools thus making it a major hub for Edutech startups like BYJUs & Toppr. In fact, BYJUs & Toppr have already started their operations in Vizag almost a year back.

As mentioned earlier Vizag has a mixed population of people coming from various cultural backgrounds and ethnicity. Also, most families are getting health conscious mainly those who have kids at home. Hence they prefer chemical-free food, healthy living environment and fresh air to breathe. This makes Vizag again a good stop for startups from verticals like Hydroponics, Organic Farming & Vertical Gardening.

Now coming to the corporate world, most of the organizations are looking forward to cut down costs at various levels to reduce financial burden. One such major area of cost-cutting is office space. Organizations are vacating their lavish offices and are shifting to CoWork Spaces that provide similar facilities at lesser costs. Also, larger firms like Phone Pe, BYJU’s, Toppr, Vodafone prefer to start their operations in Tier 2 & Tier 3 cities at CoWork Spaces rather than starting their own offices. Hence this makes Vizag a very good place for Cowork & Office Space Startups.

When you have people from various ethnicities & Cultures living in a city like Vizag, definitely they would prefer to try new dishes & drinks from world cuisine. Hence Vizag becomes a preferred location for Food & Beverages startups.

Initiatives like Google Developers Group are boosting the local startup ecosystem. GDG Vizag chapter organizes events like Developers Festivals, Code labs, Study Jam Sessions to improve the developing skills of young entrepreneurs.  There is a huge student developer crowd in Vizag that is working in projects based on Machine Learning, Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, Cloud  Computing, Web & App Development and more.

Associations like iTAAP (Information Technology Association of Andhra Pradesh) are also playing a key role in mentoring such Tech related startups and boosting their morale. 

NASSCOM Center of Excellence for IoT also has plans to start incubation center at Vizag. It will incubate startups from verticals like the Internet of Things, Machine Learning, Robotics, & Artificial Intelligence. The project got delayed due to some unknown reasons, but once the project is up the center will be a great boon for startups from the mentioned verticals. NASSCOM CoE IoT is doing a great job at their other centers based at Bengaluru, Gurgaon & Gandhinagar. I had personally visited the Bengaluru center and had a great interaction with some innovative startups.

Vizag Startup Summit is one of the annual startup events been organized at Vizag. The event is organized by RedMad Learnings. RedMad Learnings is one of the first Learning & Development startups from Vizag started in 2011. The first version of the event was a 2 days program. The event was purely an investor pitching event and 5 renowned angel investors were invited as jury for the same.

Vizag Startup summit 2.0 was a 7-days event making it "The Longest Startup Event" of Andhra Pradesh. The 7 days were filled with activities like Speed Networking, 48Hr IoT Hack-a-thon, Round Table Discussions, Problem-thon, Idea-thon, Crowd funding & Investor pitching.

Vizag - Bird's eye view

Recently Andhra Pradesh government also announced to promote Vizag as an IT hub and they are about to announce some new policies.

Such Initiatives & associations give a huge boost to Tech related startups in & around Vizag.

Enough though we have such great things going in and around Vizag, still there is a huge gap that needs to be filled as compared to other cities like Hyderabad, Bangalore, Delhi, etc. The city requires more helping hands in mentoring startups towards Technology, management, finance, decision making, etc.

Vizag is nicknamed as ”City of Destiny”, so I personally can assure that with the right push and resources Vizag can truly be a “City of Destiny” for Startups too.

Some of the renowned startups based & operating at Vizag are Prakriya Academy, Yo! Vizag, My First Office, Cosmos City, Pick Time, Academy of Robotics, Local Wire, Go Green, etc.,

I would like to welcome startups across Andhra Pradesh & the south coastal belt to explore Vizag and kick start their operations here.

Good Luck to all the entrepreneurs.

By

Madhav Reddy

Bharat Shiromani Awardee

Founder – RedMad Learnings & MRICS Startup Accelerator

madhav.reddy9@gmail.com