No doubt about it, Bangalore is the Startup hub in India. Known as the Silicon Valley of India and quickly becoming the startup magnet that is poised to transform the Indian economy, Bangalore is a force to reckon with. Through this blog, I hope to show you an overview of what the IT startup environment in Bangalore looks like. I will also be exploring the density of Venture capital inflow when compared to other countries and giving you information on the major events and opportunities here for startups.
IT Environment in India
Before we zoom in on Bangalore, let’s have look at where India stands in the startup scene. The 2016 NASSCOMM Startup report brought out some interesting facts, here’s a look:
- India has emerged as the 3rd largest base for technology driven product startups in the world with 4200 startups. This is after the US, which is home to around 47,000- 48,000 start-ups, and the UK, which has 4,500-4800 start-ups.
- Startups receive nearly $ 95 million funding weekly.
- Enterprise software in IoT, Fintech, Payments, Ad-tech, Media-tech, Recruitment and others, comprise 16-18% of the startup environment.
A more recent article mentioned that India now has some 4,750 tech startups, so the number is growing and fast! Ravi Gururaj, Chairman of Nasscom Product Council foresees a bright future for the startup scene in India. “India has the fastest growing start-up ecosystem in the world and the total number of technology product/digital start-ups is projected to be 11,500 by 2020, employing over 2.5 lakh people from just 65,000-75,000 in 2014,” he says, “This is the hyper-growth, inflection point for the Indian start-up ecosystem.”
No doubt then, that India is a hot spot for startups – especially technology startups. Now let’s focus on Bangalore.
IT Startup environment in Bangalore
Bangalore is doing exceptionally well when it comes to being a fertile ground for startups. It ranks 15th in the Global startup environment so that says a lot! The same 2016 Nasscomm report shows that Bangalore is home to 26% of startups in India, which makes it the city with the most number of startups in India. Here’s an extract of the report:
According to AngelList, Bangalore has more than 1700 startups. Known as the Silicon Valley of India, it follows then that a lot of the startups in Bangalore are in the IT sector.
How many IT startups in Bangalore?
Probably due to the fast-growing number of startups every day, a sure shot number of IT startups in Bangalore isn’t available in reports. Bangalore Circle lists more than 2500 IT firms in Bangalore and it is safe to say that a lot of them are startups. Add that to the growing numbers every day and it is impressive alright!
What’s the density of Tech Venture Capital in Bangalore?
The Huffington Post brought out numbers from a 2012 report on worldwide startup ecosystem. It said that “venture capital funds also favored Bangalore over most other cities, with a 4x rise in the amount of funding, which is an indicator of a thriving startup scene.” In 2016, Bangalore came in 17th place in the list of The Global Cities Where Tech Venture Capital Is Concentrated. According to this, $419 million was invested on the tech scene in Bangalore in 2016.
How does this compare to US or UK?
The U.S. is first on the list and accounts for 68.6 % of total global venture capital. London comes in 7th at $842 million. Asia and Europe account for 14% each.
Although it doesn’t appear in the Top 20 on this list, Germany – Berlin in particular- has shown great promise in the startup scene. The size of investment in German startups boomed to $492 million in Q2. Although this is an overall estimate of the startup scenario, Germany is definitely emerging as the startup hub in Europe.
Bangalore is clearly holding its own among some of the most developed cities in the world. As a major startup hub it continues to show promise and looks poised to achieve great things.
Which are the key organizations and events for startups in Bangalore?
The startup ecosystem is teeming with goodies for entrepreneurs. Various government and international initiatives have given startups a wide choice of opportunities to nurture and grow their startup capabilities and build their connections. Here are a few of them:
1) Startup Weekend
Startup Weekend is a non-profit organization based out of Seattle and has an alumnus of 45,000 across 478 cities. Half and more of the attendees interestingly come from a tech background so this is a great opportunity to meet like minds. Keep a check on their website to hear of upcoming events in Bangalore:
http://bangalore.startupweekend.org/
2) The NASSCOM Emergeout Conclave: NASSCOM is behind the 10,000 startups initiative that is “committed to incubate, fund and provide ambient support to impact 10,000 technology startups in India, by 2023.” This must tell you all you need to know about the kind of support that NASSCOM is looking to provide startups in the IT sector. The NASSCOM Emergeout Conclave is a great platform for tech startups to gain knowledge, exposure and contacts at the national level.
http://www.nasscom.in/eventlist
3) TiE Events: TiECON conferences sponsored by ‘The Indus Entrepreneurs’ are major events that are aimed to nurture tech related startups. The unique value in these conferences is that a lot of their discussions are from the perspectives of angel brokers, venture capitalists and service vendors.
https://www.tiecon.org/
These are just three out of the very many events that are designed to foster and develop the startup eco-system in Bangalore. A useful link in keeping up-to-date with the latest events is https://www.eventshigh.com/bangalore/startup
Here was a low-down on the IT Startup environment in Bangalore. We are going to be talking a lot more about startups in here, so stay tuned!
