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The Uprising of Startup Ecosystem in India

Anamika Sahu
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
Anamika Sahu
Indian Startups are now flying high with their wings flapping high on the ecosystem. Last year, nearly seven Indian startups were acquired by global players. And one of the most eyed acquisitions was that of Bangalore based Little Eye Labs – a startup that makes a software tool for analyzing the performance of Android apps – by Facebook. This is quite a reality check for the growing Indian startup ecosystem which lied underneath the surface for quite long.

Though Silicon Valley has always been known as the epitome of startups; India's Bangalore ranked 19th in the list of Top 20 City in the Global Startup Ecosystem Index by Startup Genome's Global Startup Index in 2012. While there is quite a long way to travel, I think we have indeed started the journey towards being at the top of the list in the coming few years while beating cities like Melbourne, Singapore, Waterloo and several others.

In 2013, Indian startups attracted over $1.6 billion investment via 293 deals as compared to $760 million via 200 deals in 2012 from various venture capitalists and angel investors in different domains. I believe this has fueled the optimistic environment in India. While I interacted with several VCs and angel investors in past few years, they too seemed worried about the apathetic ecosystem. But today, their major attention is grabbed by these startups who have risen from dormant to active juncture. Although VCs hope for good times ahead, we too see a lot of positive vibe roaming within the ecosystem. The out-of-the-box ideas, creativity, technological skills & competencies, and most important their zeal to excel and prove themselves have flabbergasted the startup industry.

Though we cannot deny the family support and the acceptance of failed startup entrepreneurs playing as the booster for startups, it is they who have worked day and night to change this perception. Today, a failed startups can happily get married and several have even incepted their company with their life partners. Wonders!

Taking an advantage of this buffering environment, we at siliconindia decided to bring to you the stories of few such startup entrepreneurs and their companies who are creating a steer within the industry through their cutting-edge offerings through "50 Cool Startups of the Year - 2014". While some are financially strong and doing well; few are encompassed with strong technological skills and offerings but lacks fund. I hope the story of these entrepreneurs and their passion encourages other would-be-entrepreneurs to soon turn to one and will see attracting major investments from VCs and angel investors. We wish them ALL THE BEST!!

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