From 350 in 2014 to 90K, Indian startups mushroom amid funding winter

With a continuing funding winter and an employment slowdown still haunting the tech world, India has seen an unprecedented boom in the number of startups being created across the spectrum in the last nine years that no other country has seen.

In two years, India has become the third largest startup ecosystem in the world, behind only the United States and China.

The Indian startup ecosystem has been an unstoppable freight train. Paths have been strongly defined by corporate involvement in the form of investments, acquisitions, open innovation programs, and government support, a momentum fueled by founders and financiers alike, according to the latest report by Nasscom in association with management consultancy Zenov. firm.

Last month, Minister of State for Science and Technology Jitendra Singh said the number of startups in the country had grown 300 times in the past nine years.

Addressing the National Innovation Awards ceremony at Delhi’s Rashtrapati Bhavan, Singh said India was home to just 350 startups before 2014, which has grown to more than 90,000 now.

Despite the slowdown in funding, India remains the third largest startup ecosystem globally, with more than 1,300 tech startups added last year, bringing the total number of active tech startups to 25,000-27,000.

India also added 23 rhinos in 2022 – the second highest numbers in the world.

According to Dippani Ghosh, President of Nasscom, “Despite the current downturn, opportunities abound for innovative companies leveraging emerging technologies to make practical impact while prioritizing business fundamentals over growth.”

In August last year, India crossed the 100 mark for unicorns.

In his monthly ‘Man Ki Baat’ radio address to celebrate the achievement, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, “The number of unicorns in the country has reached the number 100 and you know for sure that a unicorn is a startup worth at least seven- and a half thousand crores.” For these monads are more than 330 billion dollars, which is more than 25 crore rupees.”

“Surely, this is a matter of pride for every Indian. You will also be amazed to know that out of our total unicorns, 44 appeared in the last year. Not only that, 14 unicorns were formed in three to four months this year,” he mentioned.

The Prime Minister stressed that the ecosystem of startups in India today is not limited to only big cities, entrepreneurs are emerging from small cities and towns as well, which shows that in India, whoever has an innovative idea can make a fortune.

Moreover, 18 percent of startups have at least one female founder or co-founder, and 36 potential unicorn companies in the country have at least one female founder or co-founder.

In order to promote more women representation in the startup ecosystem, the government has also announced a monthly allowance for startups with women as founders/co-founders of Rs 20,000 per month for one year.

The Union Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, said last week that there is an urgent need to strengthen collaboration between businesses, government, academia and start-ups so that the talent pool of the country can devise more solutions to solve the real problem. -life problems.

During his speech at the CII Startups Summit, the minister emphasized the empowerment of startups through corporate-government collaboration.

“These are great times to increase the links between companies, government, academia and start-ups to help grow our country’s innovation capabilities and innovation ecosystem capabilities,” Chandrasekhar told the ceremony.

He said that in the past nine years, the country has come a long way in enabling startups.

“These are exciting times for young entrepreneurs in India, as they have a lot of opportunities all around them,” the minister added.

Chandrasekhar also said that the upcoming Digital India Act (DIA) will be a catalyst for startup innovations in the country.

“Prime Minister Narendra Modi is very clear that nothing the government does should not cause difficulties for innovation in the startup space,” he stressed.

According to the Nasscom-Zinnov report, while concern about funding dips is understandable, a deeper analysis of market behavior and investment trends shows that the startup ecosystem is not only poised to survive the slowdown, but also survive with a renewed focus on investors and customers in 2023.

Given the strong fundamentals of a consumer demographic, third generation entrepreneurs and a strong pool of tech talent, India’s startup ecosystem is poised to weather this storm.

(Nishant Arora can be reached at [email protected])

– Jans

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