BENGALURU: Startups in India are gaining global recognition as Y Combinator (YC) inducts three Indian startups into their summer batch. Innov8, a co-working space, self-drive car rental app JustRide, and Meesho, an app for sellers on Facebook and WhatsApp are the three companies to be a part of the largest representation of Indian companies. Silicon Valley's most coveted accelerator programme runs for a three month period, based out of its Mountain View headquarters.  The programme provides venture capitalists a platform from where they can pick companies to sponsor. The accelerator is setup with a $120,000 investment for startups across two batches every year, where a 7 percent equity stake is promised back.

The three startups from India are concentrating on building Apps for the country as the market appears to be growing, apart from it seeming an enticing opportunity. Sam Altman, President, YC, says, "Each of the founders from India in the current batch has personal experience with the problems they are solving, which gives them unique insights into the market they operate in. India is now only second to the US in terms of applications received from a country, higher than Canada or the UK."

This is not the first time YC has picked Indian companies, as previously ClearTax, an online tax return filer, and Razorpay, a payments gateway were the two major startups to be funded by YC. It has been stated by Altman earlier that India exhibits the potential of producing multiple billion-dollar startups and that YC seemed interested in being part of the country’s exploding ecosystem.

"India is one of the largest and fastest growing markets globally, and that's why we have been investing in Indian startups over the last couple of years. I think there will be multiple $10-billion-plus companies which will be started in India in the next few years and, hopefully, we will get a shot at funding some of those. Walking the talk, YC will be sending a couple partners to India in late September to meet one-on-one with Indian teams. We'll announce the visit and office hours, sign-ups in early August," Altman said.

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