Progress Software on Tuesday got into a new role of external incubator with the opening of a 23-seater, 1,600 sq ft facility on its Hyderabad campus. It is the first such facility in the corporate sector and will host four start-ups initially. Going forward it can take two more.

At the inauguration, the software firm announced RiskEdge and DoConf have signed contracts and become the first set of occupants of the Progress Pacific Incubator.

Briefing presspersons, Progress Software India managing director Ramesh Loganathan said the selected start-ups were expected to develop products on Progress products.

“If they are successful, we get licence revenue,” he explained, adding the incubator will not take equity stake in the start-ups. Such investments, he said, may be considered only after the proposed fund of Progress for start-ups is launched.

The pilot programme runs in six months cohorts, Mr.Loganathan said, adding apart from the infrastructure, Progress engineers will be available for the start-ups to provide domain expertise, mentoring and access to markets. The incubator programme, a release said, will be extended to universities and institutions in the next phase.

Progress EVP and CIO Dave Benson said depending on the success of the Hyderabad model the company may replicate it at its engineering locations, which includes Boston, North Carolina besides Sofia in Bulgaria, where it recently acquired a firm, Telerik AD.

“It is a great initiative,” declared Nasscom vice chairman BVR Mohan Reddy and described start-ups as crucial to the economy, particularly as job creators.

IIIT Hyderabad Director P.J. Narayanan said for the benefit of students setting up start-ups the Institute has introduced a deferred placement programme. Such students, in the event of the venture not clicking, remain eligible to participate in campus recruitment after three years.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Hyderabad / by N. Ravi Kumar / Hyderabad – February 24th, 2015