Diplomatist Magazine Oman 2018 - Special Report | Page 34

INDIA: A GLOBAL
HUB FOR STARTUPS
I
ndia is now the rockstar of the start-up
world. Over the past three years, it has
become the third largest start-up ecosystem,
big enough to pull serious money. According
to data compiled by Inc42, over $9.4 billion in
funding has fl owed into Indian start-ups during
January-September 2017. There are more than
a hundred funds registered with the markets
regulator Securities and Exchange Board of
India alone.This is over and above the money
which the Government of India is prepared
to put in. The Government has announced a
corpus of ₹10,000 crore (about $1.5 billion) to
fund start-ups. In fact, 75 startups have already
received funding. India’s policy on foreign
direct investment has been amended to allow
100 percent of start-ups’ funding requirements
to be fulfi lled with capital from foreign venture
capital investors.
India is one of the fastest growing startup
hubs in the world. According to the Nasscom
Startup Report 2017, India has seen an
addition of over 1,000 startups during January-
September 2017, strengthening its position as
the 2nd largest startup ecosystem across the
34 • INDIA-OMAN • 2018
world amidst intensifying competition from
countries like the UK and Israel. This takes
the total number of technology startups in
India to over 20,000, including over 5,200
tech startups, with their combined valuation
reaching $50 billion. In India, as many as 1,300
startups are created every year. To support the
early stage startups, there are 200+ incubators
and accelerators, and $9.5 billion funding has
been imparted since January 2016. There has
been a 40 percent incubator growth annually.
Twenty-eight years is the average age of the
founders of these startups, and Bengaluru is the
favourite hub for startups in India. The report
further said that the country is witnessing a
rapid rise in the business to business startups
focused on verticals like health tech, fi ntech,
e-commerce and aggregators. India is also the
world’s youngest start-up nation with 72 per
cent of the founders of startups in India being
less than 35 years in age.
The Indian Government is fully supporting
the initiative to build a robust ecosystem
for nurturing innovation-led startups. More
and more startups in India are now focusing