India Is Expected To Have Second Biggest Startup Ecosystem by 2017

According to the IT industry body Nasscom, India is on the verge of becoming second biggest eco-system for startups after the US in the next two years on account of the ongoing high growth rates.

The trade body feels that the rate at which the startups are growing is much faster than Britain and Israel, which are ranked between India and worldwide leader US at present.

Among the areas in which the startups are engaged includes wearable technologies, big data and analytics, augmented reality, cloud computing, hardware, education, advertising and healthcare.

Speaking on the startup scenario in India, R Chandrashekhar, President at Nasscom said, “We expect that within the next couple of years, we will have the second biggest startup ecosystem in the world. There is a difference between the scene here and the one outside, and pointed out that domestic companies address both opportunities within the country as well as internationally.”

Last year, the country had witnessed 800 new companies starting up, taking the total number of startups to 3100. As per the latest report of Nasscom, as many as 11,500 startups would come up in the country employing over 2,50,000 people by 2020.

The report also said, 300 VC/PE (venture capital and private equity) and 225 angel investments deals amounting to over $2 Bn have been made in India during 2014 and over 20 mergers and acquisitions worth $1 Bn were done in last three years.

The trade body further said that there were over 62 angels active in 2014. Apart from that, there are over 80 incubators and startup accelerators operating in the country at present.

Nasscom aims to promote tech innovation among startups through its 10,000 startup initiative launched in April 2013. It partners with global brands such as Google, Microsoft and Verisign. The initiative aims to nurture 10,000 startups in the next 10 years.