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Indian American entrepreneur opens startup incubation center in Telangana
It is aimed at strengthening innovation in India’s non-metro regions by supporting founders working on locally relevant problems.
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Anushka Pathak - Fri, 09, Jan 2026
- 13:43 EST
- 29
Kanwal Rekhi inaugurating the Kanwal Rekhi Rural Entrepreneurship and Startup Center (KREST) / Courtesy: LinkedIn/Kakatiya Sandbox
Indian-American entrepreneur and philanthropist Kanwal Rekhi on Jan. 8 inaugurated the Kanwal Rekhi Rural Entrepreneurship and Startup Center (KREST) in Nizamabad, Telangana.
The center has been positioned as India’s first incubation facility focused on supporting rural and semi-urban entrepreneurs working on locally relevant challenges.
The center, launched under Kakatiya Sandbox, is aimed at strengthening innovation in India’s non-metro regions by supporting founders working on locally relevant problems.
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The inauguration was attended by students, startup founders, mentors, and ecosystem stakeholders, reflecting an emphasis on building scalable solutions rooted in rural and semi-urban contexts.
Kanwal Rekhi with KREST founders / Courtesy: LinkedIn/Kakatiya SandboxThe launch marked the realization of a vision articulated nearly three years earlier, with Rekhi closely involved in shaping the initiative. Among those present were Kakatiya Sandbox founders Raju Reddy and Phanindra Sama, along with Ben Rekhi, Desh Deshpande, Manish Jaiswal, and Sahiti Meduri.
The organizers highlighted the growing role of non-metro cities in India’s economic growth and identified Nizamabad as a potential regional innovation hub.
Operating as a vertical under Kakatiya Sandbox, KREST offers co-working spaces, a Makers Lab, and mentorship programs. The model draws inspiration from initiatives such as Deshpande Startups in Hubli and builds on Kakatiya Sandbox’s decade-long work in skill development and innovation, which has reached an estimated 2.6 million people.
KREST has set targets to support more than 10,000 student entrepreneurs and 500 startups by 2030, with plans to scale up to 200,000 students and 10,000 startups by 2047, marking the centenary of India’s independence.
Rekhi, born in 1945, co-founded Excelan in 1982 and later became the first Indian-American chief executive to take a venture-backed company public on NASDAQ in 1987.
He subsequently served as executive vice president at Novell, co-founded The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) network, and later invested in more than 50 startups through Inventus Capital Partners.
His philanthropic work includes endowments for information technology education at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay and Michigan Technological University.
The launch of KREST comes amid a broader national push to promote rural innovation through initiatives such as Startup India and the Atal Innovation Mission, aimed at reducing disparities between urban and rural regions and unlocking growth potential in non-metro areas, including parts of Telangana.
Discover more at New India Abroad.
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