The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has set up a Centre of Excellence for Innovation Entrepreneurship and Startups (CII CIES) at T-Hub, to collaborate with start-ups and the start-up ecosystem.

Interestingly, it will handhold both the corporates and family offices on how to invest in work with start-ups; and start-ups in finding the pain points of corporates and find solutions to address them.

The swanky 15,000 sq ft facility, with 200 seats available for start-ups, is located on the sixth floor of T-Hub, which is the biggest start-up innovation campus in the country.

“We source problem statements from corporates and identify the start-ups that meet the requirements. We will incubate them,” Kris Gopalakrishnan, Co-Founder of Infosys and Chairman of CII CIES, has said. 

“The strength of CII is its network. We have over 9,000 direct members and 65 offices across the country. We have close relationships with several leading industry associations across the world. We will use this network to promote start-ups and innovation,” he said.

He said the CII would expose the start-ups to the investment and mentor ecosystem and provide them with funding and market access opportunities.

Using its vast resources, the CII would try bridging critical gaps such as capacity, resources, and linkages, through targeted programmes and interventions. 

Corporate education

Kris said the centre would offer education programmes for corporates and family houses to handhold them on how to invest in start-ups and how to work with the start-ups.

Rural entrepreneurship would be another focus area for the centre. “It requires a completely different set of issues. We will work with micro, small and medium enterprises,” he said.

CII launched the CIES initiative in 2020 as a corporate-driven resource platform that enables the growth of successful start-ups in India. 

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