Indian Startups

Startup School is a series of guided online trainings designed to equip early-stage startup founders with the tools, products, and knowledge that growing companies need. The curriculum will feature instructional modules on subjects like shaping an effective product strategy, deep dives on product user value, roadmapping and product requirements document development, building apps for next billion users in markets like India, driving user acquisition and many more.

The 'Digital India' initiatives have brought in a seismic transformation in the economic landscape of the country, by creating more opportunities and putting the youth in the driver's seat of the digital economy," he said at the 'StartUps Conference' here. Minister of Electronics and IT Ashwini Vaishnaw and several founders and co-founders of startups and unicorns were also present at the event.

Iron Pillar provides growth capital to help Indian startups expand their global footprint. According to Deal Street Asia, citing sources, the VC firm is in advanced talks with limited partners (LPs) to raise about $400 million in its second fund. The VC firm has startups like FreshToHome, Uniphore, Curefoods and others in its portfolio. According to a recent report by Iron Pillar, India is likely to have more than 250 unicorns by 2025.

Startups, especially the ones who benefited from a pandemic boom, are feeling the pressure as valuations, particularly at the late stage, have started to dip, according to Crunchbase. Startups now say it is much more difficult to raise new funding in this gloomy environment. Globally, companies like Netflix, financial services company Robinhood and several crypto platforms have tripped their workforce.

According to Union Science and Technology Minister Dr Jitendra Singh, the country has risen from 300 to 70,000 startups in the last 8 years, which is a massive 20,000 per cent increase. "We should aim at a sustainable startup ecosystem because startups are going to determine the future economy of India. It is a matter of pride that globally out of every 10 unicorns, one is Indian," the minister said during an event organised by the PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry late on Thursday.

As startups face the wrath of global macro-economic factors like the Russia-Ukraine war, high inflation, rising interest rates and Chinese lockdowns with laying off the workforce and shutting divisions, the "course correction is coming to India and the founders must prepare themselves for a long-haul innings to survive the slowdown.

One of the biggest investors in the Indian and Southeast Asia startup ecosystem, it said that recently, some portfolio founders have been under investigation for potential fraudulent practices or poor governance. "These allegations are deeply disturbing. We have always strongly encouraged founders to play the long game. We focus on the enduring, and discourage focussing on vanity metrics. Despite that we find some counter-examples of what we espouse," the VC said in a blog post.

Addressing a session on "Gateway to Growth - Roundtable on Indian Startup Ecosystem" in Abu Dhabi, he said: "Today we are the third largest startup ecosystem, but our aspiration is to be the world's number one startup destination," as per an official statement. "The startup bug has caught India's imagination. The entire innovation ecosystem that the startup industry represents is giving a new direction, new momentum to India," he said, as per the Commerce and Industry Ministry statement.

According to HDFC Securities, funding activities have created 42 unicorns in 2021. In financial parlance, a startup is considered to have become a unicorn once it achieves a value of over $1 billion. Last year, India added 42 unicorns in 2021 alone, taking the total tally to 79. The country is ranked third in the world in terms of the total number of unicorns. The optimism of investing in Indian internet ecosystem can be linked to the immense growth potential and problem solving or disruptive nature of startups."

The BharatPe episode, which shocked the startup industry, has startled Bengaluru, known as the startup capital of India.The incident has also rang alarm bells among many startups, which are going easy on financial discipline. Industry insiders feel that while the investors want to double their money, founders of startups want to settle down as soon as they get investments, without even bothering to think about the future of the workforce.