For start-ups, Bangalore to have a mall with facilities
A new patron has been found by the city’s startup community in none other than institutional investment firm Xander Group. An incubation centre for entrepreneurs is been created at the upcoming mall in Whitefield, Bangalore by Virtuous Retail, a mall developer-cum-operator backed by Xander with a committed equity of $600 million, a first among mall developers in the country. In 2015, the 1-millionsqft mall will be operational and will have a dedicated 50,000-sqft plug and-play workspace for bootstrapped entrepreneurs.
Nasscom, IT industry body last year set up a 150-seater plug-and-play facility called Startup Warehouse in Bangalore to make available a co-working space to early-stage startups.
Anupam Yog, international director (marketing), Virtuous Retail said that Bangalore being a market full of entrepreneurs the motive was to have something different to cater to consumer demand. The calculations regarding the cost dynamics of the incubation centre is being worked out and could include pay-by-use or pay-by-hour options.
About 9-million sqft of mall space is possessed by Virtuous Retail which is under development and half of it will be available for operation in the next 24 months. In India Company being the largest leased holder of retail space, last year opened its first mall VR Surat in Gujarat.
In Bangalore, though the incubation centre is being looked at as a ‘transferable idea’ to other cities, Yog alleged, “It has to be done at the right time and we believe that the time for such a concept in Bangalore has come.”
Mall-based co-working spaces could be beneficial to start-ups which are either consumer or retail oriented and need to do market research and usability focus groups, as told by Ravi Gururaj, head of the Nasscom Product Council.
Gururaj added awesome facilities are provided by new mall developments, such as visitor parking, courier offices, uninterrupted power, good security, and are at well placed locations served by public transport. For the timestrapped entrepreneur, they have ready shopping and even great entertainment options for team building — all attributes which startup teams yearn for in their ideal office space.
Source: Times of India
Anupam Yog, Bangalore, Gujarat, IT industry, Mall developments, Nasscom, Ravi Gururaj, Virtuous Retail, VR Surat, Whitefield, Xander group
