The Evolution of Indian Startup Ecosystem

"The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones"

A startup is a company that is in it's first stage of operations. A startup company is an entrepreneurial venture which is typically a newly emerged business that aims to meet a marketplace need by developing a viable business model around a product, services, process or a platform. These companies are often initially bankrolled by their entrepreneurial founders as they attempt to capitalize on developing a product or service for which they believe there is a demand.

A startup ecosystem is formed by people, startups in their various stages and various types of organizations in a location (physical or virtual), interacting as a system to create and scale new startup companies.

Need For Startups in India

India is a country with the third largest number of start-ups in the world. However, we need more entrepreneurs to come forth as the Indian market is constantly evolving and the opportunities need to be tapped.

Here are few reason why India more entrepreneur:

New ideas make life simpler

Indians are often not very comfortable with taking charge. However, in the recent times, we’ve observed the growth of entrepreneurs in the country due to a boom of innovative ideas. With a huge variety of new idea cropping up; we can only fathom how much easier our life gets. If one needs to book a cab, Ola is the way to go; one can easily check restaurant listings on Zomato while booking tickets through BookMyShow is super convenient and only made the lives of people more organised. 

Fill gaps in growth and helps huge number of VCs to invest

The Prime Minister, Narendra Modi believes that start-ups are essential to bridge the gaps to enhance growth and development of the country on various fronts. The world of investors see potential in our country and we need to use all the attention coming our way in a positive way. Recently, Zoomcar received funding worth $8 million from Sequoia capital where as OYO is funded by Sequoia Capital, SoftBank and GreenOaks capital which are foreign based investors.

Government initiatives creates healthy competition

Government is also planing to provide budding entrepreneurs with perks such as legal support for filing patents at free of cost and 80% reduction in filing patent fee. This will force companies to come up with newer and more cost-effective ideas in order to secure profit margins and build a base which are beneficial to the customer. If the Government eases taxation for start-ups, it’ll be a great boost to empower the aspiring entrepreneurs who should definitely grab the opportunity and start more companies in India.

For instance, Zomato was almost a monopoly until close players like FoodPanda and Swiggy ventured into the restaurant business increasing competition in a healthy way and providing the customers with more choices. 

The Rise of the start-ups in India and their success

The ‘Golden Age’ for start-ups in India has well and truly arrived, and India is witnessing its age old talent for entrepreneurship being unleashed like never before. Indian start-ups are witnessing unprecedented valuations unheard of earlier, but then the potential for business expansion within India alone is so significant that any serious investor cannot afford to ignore the India growth story.

The start-up boom is not unique to India alone. China too is fast emerging as a place for innovation, especially in technology, and will continue to attract investments over the next decade. New ideas are exploding into business models and investors are all lining up to provide the requisite finance and mentoring, to take the start-up to the next round of funding and higher valuations. Success stories of businesses that have grown over the last 5-8 years in India are Flipkart, Snapdeal and Myntra – all e-commerce companies, Paytm in payment processing, Red Bus in travel, Olacabs in taxi aggregation, Book My Show in entertainment, and Housing.com in real estate. The list is long with more companies being launched each month.

In India, Bangalore has earned itself a 15th place ranking, up four spots from its earlier rank, as per the latest report on Global Start-up Ecosystem released by Compass. Organisations like NASSCOM have set up a target to support 10,000 start-ups over the next few years. Companies like SIDBI are now stepping into the start-up funding space and platforms +like SEBI are now easing norms for early stage companies to raise funds through the IPO route. That signals India is now on its way towards establishing itself as a country which has a flourishing ecosystem to encourage and support innovation and new ideas.

Startup Culture And It's Trends in Indian

India is soon going to be a home for a number of start-ups. With initiatives such as Make in India, startupindia, skill development centres, there has been an exponential growth in the no of incubators, entrepreneur, startup hubs etc. India is changing and so are the aspirations of its 1.2 billion people. Our country, once regarded as a third-world economy, is today the hub of billion-dollar firms and a hot investment destination. This change is certainly not the result of a one- day effort and no single person can take credit for bringing it. 

PM Modi’s Digital India initiative has brought a new dimension to the local economy – from new jobs to more innovation and a booming startup community – the opportunity in India has never been better. The change took some 68 years to happen, facing challenges like corrupt governments, a weak economy, and low purchasing power. 

With roughly 4,200 startups, eight of which are valued at over $1 billion, India’s numbers are now directly behind that of the US and the UK. And three to four new Indian startups are emerging every day, Indian start-ups are putting their sweat and blood to build a successful business in India.  In fact, over $6.4 billion has been invested into Indian startups in the first three-quarters of last year, reported Firstpost. 90% of the startup activity in India seems to be happening in top 6 cities of Bangalore (28 per cent), Delhi-NCR (24 per cent), Mumbai (15 per cent), Hyderabad (8 per cent), Pune (6 per cent) and Chennai (6 per cent).Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Kochi, Jaipur and Thiruvananthapuram.

Future Of Startups In India

"India’s Future Lies With The Startups", Says Union Minister Suresh Prabhu

Union minister for commerce, industry and civil aviation Suresh Prabhu believes that the Indian startups should focus on building “business models” for the society in his speech that reflects his intent on further motivating the startup ecosystem for India’s future. 

On-demand services are giving rise to a more efficient time. They are here to stay.Initially considered a bubble, it looks like the on-demand economy is here to stay. On-demand companies attract nearly 22.4 million customers annually, according to Harvard Business Reports