StartupCentral

The Startup Centre, the newest startup networking/ support forum to come out of Chennai, goes live on May 1 with a Resident Programme that has already received the blessings of SAIF Partners. Applications are open till April 22. SAIF will sponsor one resident who cannot afford the cost of the programme due to financial constraints.

Since the launch of the idea around June last year, The Startup Centre’s model has undergone some changes. To begin with, it is now a for-profit venture and will raise funds from investors in lieu of equity stakes. “If we had gone the donor way (as per the original plan) we would have had to go fundraising every years,” says Vijay Anand, who is spearheading the initiative. Anand is well known in the startup community in his previous role of founder and curator of Proto.in, the startup showcase forum that now seems to be defunct. The initial seed capital for The Startup Center has come from the six-member founding team and talks are underway with prospective investors for additional capital.

The center, located inside Alsa Mall at Egmore, Chennai, will have three kinds of activities geared towards entrepreneurs:

Community-based events – The centre has already hosted In50Hrs, Idea to Prototype on March 25-27 where entrepreneurs, designers and hackers came together to give shape to business ideas. Since then it has become the venue for OpenCoffee Club and other unconferencing activities.

Resident Programme – A six-month programme where participating startups will have to pay for the space and services. Single founders will be charged Rs 7,500 per month (about $170) and two-founder teams will be charged Rs 10,000 (about $226) Only founders can be part of the programme. Out of the total applications received 10-15 teams will be shortlisted. Anand says that about 75 applications have already come in and some from as far as Kolkata.

Accelerator – This is the most ambitious part of the centre’s plans and is still being fine-tuned. The scheduled launch date is October. “We’re still trying to decide on the key value that we can offer – customers or funding,” says Anand. The Accelerator is likely to fashioned along the lines of the YCombinator model with some modifications to suit the Indian environment. At some stage the founders may also think of micro-fund to invest in startups.

Follow The Startup Center on Twitter and Facebook.

Image Courtesy: The Startup Centre

IIT Bombay’s E-Summit 2011 comes up on February 6th. Notable events at the summit include a Business Mentoring Hub, where raw ideas will be mentored by a panel of six from the Indian corporate sector, and a startup showcase called Startup Expo. And of course, the finalists of Eureka! 2010 will be announced and awarded at the summit.

The Startup Center, a community center initiative for young startups in Chennai, is registering itself as a company and will be raising equity capital to fund the venture. The earlier plan was to raise money from donors but that does not seem to have gone too well. The space will be ready for use by May 2011, says Vijay Anand, who is leading the initiative. In the interim The Startup Center will launch two events — a startup weekend and a workshop for angel investors.