A 2014 study had ranked IITs as fourth among the top 50 universities globally, whose graduates were entrepreneurial.
In 2024 so far, 20 startups have already visited the campus with 80 placements.
Thanks to a booming market, India now has more than 300 family offices, up from 45 in 2018, according to a PwC report. The number is expected to grow rapidly, with promoters establishing more businesses in Tier-II and Tier-III cities. Family businesses play a crucial role in India's booming economy, spanning manufacturing, retail, real estate, healthcare, and finance.
As a venture partner, DVP said that Neemuchwala would be bringing deep technology expertise and invaluable experience of building businesses.
India is the second-largest global venture capital investment hub for digital shopping companies, growing by a whopping 175 per cent from $8 billion in 2020 to $22 billion in 2021, according to an official analysis released here on Wednesday. On a global scale, India came in second to the US last year, which attracted $51 billion in investment, followed by China at third with $14 billion and the UK at fourth with $7 billion. Within India, Bengaluru comes out on top globally with $14 billion worth of Venture Capital (VC) investments in digital shopping in 2021, followed by Gurugram at No. 7 with $4 billion and Mumbai at No. 10 with $3 billion.
Finally, some good news for the Indian startup ecosystem. After four consecutive half-year periods of declining funding since 2022, the first half (H1) of 2024 has shown an upward trend compared to the second half (H2) of 2023. According to the India Tech Semi-Annual Funding Report H1 2024 by Tracxn, Indian technology (tech) startups raised $4.1 billion in H1 2024, marking a 4 per cent increase from $3.96 billion in H2 2023.
For a segment that thrives on promise more than performance, the country's start-up ecosystem is refusing to get carried away by the funding this calendar year. This has created the highest level of uninvested venture capital in seven years as investors wait for corrections in the working and - more importantly - valuation of start-ups while looking for cockroaches instead of unicorns. "Investors are now keen to invest in companies that have good top and bottom lines.
Banks are allowed to invest up to 10 per cent of the paid-up or unit capital in Category-I or Category-II Alternative Investment Funds
The fresh meat and seafood delivery startup Licious plans to set up 500 stores nationwide within the next five years as part of an omnichannel strategy. The aim is to attract new users in the offline channel and encourage them to transact online as well. The move would also help the company in its efforts to achieve profitability and go for an initial public offering (IPO) in the next 24 months, according to the sources.
With 16 start-ups gaining unicorn status in 2021, India's tally has touched the 50 mark. The newest entrant to this list include Pune-based MindTickle, which is close to finalising a $100-million funding round from Softbank's Vision Fund 2, taking the company's valuation to $1.1 billion.
Foreign investment in India's start-ups has plummeted 72 per cent to $4.58 billion so far, from $16.2 billion during the same period last year.
Indian startups have raised $42 billion in 2021, up from $11.5 billion in the previous year, a report by Orios Venture Partners said. The report titled 'The Indian Tech Unicorn Report 2021' said India saw 46 unicorns (companies with $1 billion valuations) in 2021 alone, more than doubling the total number of unicorns to 90. These include ShareChat, Cred, Meesho, Nazara, Moglix, MPL, Grofers (now Blinkit), upGrad, Mamaearth, GlobalBees, Acko, Spinny and others. India - with 90 unicorns - is the third-largest unicorn hub behind the US (487) and China (301), and ahead of the UK (39).
Why are financial-technology (fintech) players moving back to India, or doing the reverse-flipping?
With $18.6 billion in investments, Bengaluru made it to the top-five leading VC funding hubs across the world in 2021 - following San Francisco Bay Area, New York, Greater Boston Region and London. However, it outstripped Beijing ($13.6 billion) and Shanghai ($13.4 billion). Global tech VC investment into start-ups hit a record level of $675 billion in 2021, doubling the previous all-time high of $340.6 billion in 2020, a report by London & Partners and dealroom.co.
Bigbasket's founder V S Sudhakar said his company was reengineering its supply chain to allow for faster delivery to its resellers and to reduce the time from farm to customer.
'The success of one or two IPOs does not dictate whether the upcoming IPOs will be successful or not, but it certainly indicates that the markets and investors are enthusiastic about startup IPOs.'
The turmoil, if you read the headlines, is about the so-called funding winter. Deep down, though, the question is one of the common direction in which founders and investors need to pull, points out Suveen Sinha.
I hope those who underestimate Rajeev Chandrasekhar will be proved wrong in this fight for Thiruvananthapuram's future, notes Rajeev Srinivasan.
In the start-up world, hitting the $1-billion mark, which accords the "Unicorn" tag, is a milestone. Enterprises typically reach the milestone only by series C or series D, or three to four funding rounds later. Zeta achieved it at the first one. On May 25, the six-year-old banking tech firm raised $250 million from Japanese conglomerate SoftBank, at a post-money valuation of $1.45 billion. "This is the first time we have raised institutional money," Zeta co-founder Bhavin Turakhia beamed on the conference call. This trajectory is uncommon in start-ups.
The IPL franchises are now expanding their bouquet of teams across leagues in the West Indies, UAE, South Africa and now the US is another untapped market that wasn't explored despite the Asian diaspora craving for some cricket.
At least 14 of the top 20 venture capital (VC) and private equity (PE) funds in India reduced new deals with start-ups by a fifth in 2022. The number fell from 572 in 2021 to 456 this year, according to data from Venture Intelligence. Sequoia Capital, a leader in investments, retained its top slot but its number of deals fell from 110 in 2021 to 70 this year.
US-based boutique investment firm GQG Partners along with other investors on Wednesday bought an 8.1 per cent stake in Adani Power Ltd for over Rs 9,000 crore ($1.1 billion) as the marquee investor shrugged off damning report of a US short seller to invest in billionaire Gautam Adani's group.
Indian start-ups raised issues, such as blockages in international wire transfers, disruptions due to threshold limits on withdrawals, lack of communication from US agencies, and the need for preferential access to credit, in a meeting with the government over the fallout of Silicon Valley Bank's collapse. Rajeev Chandrasekhar, minister of state for electronics and information technology, held a virtual meeting with over 450 members from start-ups, venture capitalists, and investors who have been directly affected by the closure of SVB. He assured them that the IT ministry would put together a list of suggestions and give it to the finance minister on behalf of start-ups.
There's a hint of new competition riding into a sector that has attracted attention for being in a duopoly-like situation. Rapido, a commute app known for its budget-friendly bike-taxi services, on Tuesday announced its entry into the cab market, which is currently dominated by marquee brands Uber and Ola. Rapido's cab foray will be enabled by a software as a service (SaaS)-based platform.
On a cloudy Monday this month, Mohammed Irshad flew from Kochi to Gurugram to attend an exclusive investor networking event. Among a handful of founders selected for the event, Irshad was to pitch his peer-to-peer learning start-up Notespaedia for funding in front of top venture capital investors such as AngelBay, Elevation Capital, and Inflection Point Ventures. He failed to woo them, but the feisty entrepreneur was determined to continue his hunt.
'With our focus and strategy we can solve at least 20 per cent per cent of India's education problems.'
Family offices are increasingly looking to invest directly in start-ups rather than through investment in venture capital (VC) firms. The shift is happening because of multiple reasons. Next-generation scions of wealthy families are conversant with how the start-up world works after they have spent time in Silicon Valley; start-up investment is rising to 10-15 per cent of family offices' portfolios from single digits; and they do not want to share gains of investment with VC firms. "While earlier they would prefer to invest in this asset class via venture capital (VC) funds as LPs (limited partners), now they are making direct investment in start-ups.
In 2020-2021, the amount of foreign direct investment into India from China and Hong Kong plummeted to just $200 million -- its lowest in the recent past. In the first half of 2021-2022, FDI investments through these two nations stood at just $36 million.
Indian start-ups are disrupting the world and women-based entrepreneurship is one of the vehicles for realising a more equal society, Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant said on Monday. Addressing an event organised by FICCI Ladies Organisation (FLO), Kant further said India at present has more than 61,000 start-ups and 81 unicorns. "Indian start-ups are disrupting the world especially in new emerging areas of health, nutrition and agriculture," he said.
Companies don't have to be in the field to nudge people to return money they owe lenders.
With investors asking for a change in the board structure at Byju's, the edtech giant's founder and chief executive officer (CEO), Byju Raveendran, is now asking them to put $300 million into the company for more control. The company has rung up $5.8 billion from investors such as General Atlantic, Sofina, the Qatar Investment Authority, Sumeru Ventures, Vitruvian Partners, BlackRock, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Sequoia, Silver Lake, Bond Capital, Tencent, and Tiger Global.
India added three unicorns per month in 2021 to nearly double the overall number to about 85 at last count. And there are many gazelles and cheetahs in the pipeline. All gunning to be unicorns (and then decacorns) soon thereafter, notes Sandeep Goyal.
IT and ITeS companies accounted for $28.1 billion of the total investment pie during the first nine months of 2021.
'Byju's financials only reflect the core business. At a group level, they are experiencing substantial losses.'
US hedge fund Tiger Global and Japanese investment giant SoftBank have trimmed their investments in Indian start-ups by over a third - from $3.8 billion in the second half of 2021 to a mere $1.08 billion in H1 2022, according to data from Venture Intelligence. While SoftBank's investments in India dropped from $1.9 billion in H2 2021 by more than a fifth to only $0.33 billion in H1 2022, that of Tiger Global fell from $1.92 to $0.74 billion in the same period. Private equity (PE) fund trackers point out that this year most of the deals that Tiger Global has invested in are in the early stage (up to series D), and only a few are in the series E and above.
A joint venture of the Indian conglomerate Vedanta and Taiwanese electronics manufacturing giant Foxconn signed a memorandum of understanding with the Gujarat government on Tuesday to set up a semiconductor and display manufacturing unit in the state.
Zomato has the potential to be an equally important milestone for Indian equity markets, notes Akash Prakash.
While welcoming Prime Minister Narendra Modi's announcement on Saturday to celebrate January 16 as National Start-up Day, six years after the Start-up India Action Plan was launched by the government, stakeholders in the ecosystem say that more needs to be done at the policy level to unleash the next phase of growth in the sector. "The Start-up India programme's launch in 2016 was a turning point - that is when the promoter came to be known as the founder in the country and the word 'entrepreneur' entered the common lexicon. "But now we need a Start-up India 2.0 now for the next phase of growth of the ecosystem", said Siddarth Pai, managing partner of venture capital (VC) firm 3one4 Capital. Pai says that Startup India 2.0 must look at promoting Startups headquartered in tier II,III & IV cities and solving the problems of Bharat.
'India has over 300 million online sports fans, of which over 60 million use fantasy sports as their primary tool for engagement with their favourite sport.'
Though startups find 17 mentions in the Budget speech of the finance minister, and have been promised tax exemptions, the reality is that only 2 per cent of the 4,648 applications received from startups for income tax exemption had been approved as of February 2019, according to an answer to a Parliament question. As India's startup space bubbles with activity - new, young players are tapping into opportunities opening up - there are local anti-portfolio stories circulating about investors missing opportunities in 'unicorns', or companies that have reached valuation of $ 1 billion, says Vandana Gombar.
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