Billionaire Venture Capitalist Tim Draper and Start-up Odisha executive chairman Dr Omkar Rai recently met in Cuttack to discuss on the prospects of escalating the growth of start-ups, fostering entrepreneurship in Odisha and the possibility of establishing a ‘Draper Start-up House’ in Odisha. 

Tim Draper lauded the efforts of the state government in supporting the start-up ecosystem. The bitcoin billionaire investor Draper is known for his early bets in breakthrough tech companies like Tesla, SpaceX, Hotmail, Skype and more. He also backs start-ups in various ways. It was reported that discussions have begun between Tim Draper’s team and Start-up Odisha on the modalities of how to take it forward.

“The startup ecosystem in Odisha is growing by leaps and bounds capitalising on the strength of both traditional and modern sectors. Odisha is ranked among the 'Top Performer States' as per the Start-up Ranking 2021 given by the Government of India. To further spur the growth and support the start-up ecosystem, we had a discussion regarding establishing a ‘Draper Start-up House’ in Odisha. A ‘Draper Start-up House’ has been established in Bengaluru and with the potential that Bhubaneswar holds in the start-up ecosystem, the next destination can likely be Odisha’s capital,” said Dr Rai.

‘Draper Start-up House’ aims to support start-up entrepreneurs across the world, with a vision and mission of one million entrepreneurs by 2030. Draper Start-up Houses are in about 25 cities around the world and Draper is reportedly expecting to move that to 50 this year.

Tim admired the efforts of Start-up Odisha and said, “Giving Incubation support to start-ups is a very important job”.

Start-up Odisha has taken several initiatives in the recent past like Start-up Odisha Yatra and Start-up Xpress to promote grassroots innovations and entrepreneurship among the students. Also, Odisha Start-up Growth Fund (Fund-of-Funds) for supporting start-ups to scale. Start-up Odisha has also initiated the concept of “Campus Ambassadors”  where Start-up Odisha in its attempt to directly reach out to the students across campuses, and in its bid to be pervasive throughout educational institutions, universities, colleges, Business-schools, etc., has identified some bright students as Campus Ambassadors who apart from being prospective start-ups would also add value to the start-up ecosystem of Odisha by inspiring, sensitising, and orienting their peers to be part of start-ups and encourage them for entrepreneurship.

“Odisha Government has extended all support to the start-up ecosystem in the state and has developed O-Hub, an Incubation center that sprawls over 3.8 lakh sq ft in Bhubaneswar,” informed Dr. Rai.