A recent report put together by Crunchbase says that Bengaluru, heart of Indian IT startups is the fifth city in world to receive highest amount of Venture Capital funding in 2014. This is in line with the findings of Naascom and Zinnov that says going forward Tech startups in India have a bright future. In all Bengaluru received $2.6-billion in venture capital funding other cities being San Francisco ($13 billion), Beijing ($6.4 billion), New York ($5.7 billion), Palo Alto ($3.2 billion). The Nasscom and Zinnov report suggest that currently there are more than 3,100 start-ups and more than 800 start-ups added in 2014 alone this is a significant number. More positive and humble estimation suggest that by 2020 India’s start-up number will increase to 11,500 generating employment to 250,000 people.
India had some of the start-up success stories in the past but nothing compared to the present times that Indian Startup ecosystem enjoys. Experts suggest that the major growth drivers are due to large domestic market, easy access to capital & mentors and increased M&A activities. Some of the opportunities that lies ahead include Internet of Things, augmented reality, smart hardware, big data & analytics, cloud computing etc. Bengaluru and NCR are two of the important startup destinations that consist of almost 50% of the starts up in India with over 59% of them concentrating on B2C segment which is dominated by ecommerce and online marketplace. The other important segment B2B is dominated by big data & analytics, ERP and marketing solutions. Scaling the business is one the key priorities for young Entrepreneurs by attracting best talent in industry by offering them good compensation, stock options, enhanced growth opportunities and flexible work culture.
One of the reasons for favorable startup ecosystem is easy access to good funding the capital required can be accessed through various sources like VC/PE, Angel investors, banks, financial institutions and incubators. With startups having more options to collaborate with like-mined companies, and partnership with platform players, IT services, Global MNCs have added to the acceleration to the growth of the companies. Having said that India is indeed offering a great platform for startups to grow but to make this ecosystem to flourish and sustain it is imperative that there is positive support from government through favorable policies. Some of the startups like Zomato, Zipdial, Snapdeal, Housing.com, Dhurva, PayTm, Ola cabs, Freshdesk have shown how companies can add value to the customers and make significant change in the overall startup ecosystems. Going forward great opportunities are in IoT, SaaS, Mobile solution, data analytics, smart hardware etc. Considering the present scenario the future for Indian Startup looks optimistic.
