Entrepreneurship is embedded in India’s economy and culture. This opinion piece traces the roots of India’s startup ecosystem and where it is headed in the future. The co-authors include Somshubhro Pal Choudhury, a partner at Bharat Innovation Fund, a $100 million venture fund that backs entrepreneurs building deep-tech companies in India; Supriya Sharma, partner – insights at CIIE.CO, a leading entrepreneurship center based at the Indian Institute of Management – Ahmedabad; and Sanjay Jain, a partner at Bharat Innovation Fund.
India’s startup economy has been booming. The last decade has seen significant activity on multiple fronts including the founding of new startups, amount of funding and number of investment rounds, influx of global investors and startups, development of regulatory infrastructure, global mergers and acquisitions, and internationalization. Entrepreneurial success stories abound. At last count, India had 26 unicorns, with eight new entrants joining the club in 2018 alone.
For example, consider Byju’s, one of the newly minted unicorns in the K-12 online education space, which today has a valuation of $5.5 billion. Started in 2011 by a former schoolteacher, Byju’s has gone through more than seven rounds of funding, acquired a customer base of some 35 million subscribers, and is already profitable. The company had revenues of more than $200 million in 2018, with a three-fold jump over the previous year and a target of doubling revenues this year. Byju’s recently acquired Bay Area-based early learning phygital (physical plus digital) platform startup, Osmo, for $120 million. Byju’s also partnered with Walt Disney Inc. for its aggressive global expansion into the early learning space with Disney’s timeless stories and characters.
