The Secret Ingredient Powering Inc42’s Data And Insights — DataLabs

When we started Inc42 over 5 years ago, the Indian startup ecosystem was still finding its feet and we had the privilege to have been a part of this evolution since then. From seeing fledgeling startups turn into unicorns, the shifting fortunes of investors, mega-deals such as Walmart-Flipkart, to the birth of 49K startups in India — we have been at the forefront of this revolution.

In bringing our readers the most-informed coverage, reports, and events from the startup ecosystem, we have always put one aspect over all others — data!

Back in 2014, when we started envisioning Inc42, we had our own confusions — at the time there were many platforms covering startups along with the usual traditional media houses  — we would spend countless hours wondering — what would set us apart? How can we cut through the clutter? How could we best serve actionable insights and memorable stories to our readers?

Fortunately, the three of us (co-founders) would always agree with the data, regardless of the intensity of argument presented by the others. The final decisions would always be based on data.

You can say Data is in our DNA!

Besides different content formats, within the first two years of our operations itself, we started experimenting with different data-sets to help our editorial gain its unique positioning. We would spend a lot of time sorting through the data available and deriving interesting insights.

Gradually, this started becoming a practice throughout the entire editorial team. We even started experimenting with annual reports (in the form of long-form articles) as a barometer for the health of the Indian startup ecosystem, which garnered a great response.

As the startup ecosystem grew, the need for data grew, so did the requirement to structure this data.

That’s how we met Ankan Das who shares our obsession with data (#DasData as we call him) in 2016 and leads DataLabs. The challenges facing Ankan were huge since our editorial team would just throw questions at him in the hope that he would run a wand over them and produce interesting insights. But, in the background, for every request, he would collect multiple data points manually, structure them, discuss and then present insights.

How manual! He would always complain!

To solve this, we started building Nucleus — a tech platform — which would, in simple words, present interesting insights about the Indian startup ecosystem with just a few clicks! However, we never opened it for public usage, and till date, it remains an internal tool for the Inc42 Editorial team! 😛

But there were several questions — and the most important one was — how would we scale it further?

And so we started producing reports under the DataLabs banner — starting from simple annual funding reports, to our very first paid report – The State Of Indian AgriTech in 2017; Blockchain Technology Report in 2018 — to studies on the startup ecosystem in Indian states — like we did on Kerala — Kerala Startup Ecosystem Report in 2018!

You name it, we have done it!

We narrowed down to DataLabs’ flagship report — The State of Indian Startup Ecosystem —  which we launched last year. The Indian startup ecosystem is almost two-decades-old and the information regarding the inception, the impact and how it evolved to become so massive (valued at $130 Bn) had remained scattered. Thus, we took the onus to bring all the data together and combine it together with our insights and build this go-to guide to the Indian startup ecosystem.

A team of six people referred to more than 1,500 articles and 200 reports, covered the entire spectrum of the Indian startup ecosystem, backed with original data and insights. It was tough, but it helped us structure everything, we spent more than a year decoding everything and making sure we got every aspect right.

The information and data gap led us to bring DataLabs out from the shadows of editorial, and give it an independent status. After all, it deserves it!

Announcing Today — The Launch Of DataLabs By Inc42!

DataLabs is Inc42’s research division, which has produced over 30+ reports so far — covering the diverse sectors and segments of the Indian startup ecosystem.

Driving our DataLabs operations are the insights coming from Nucleus, and the knowledge and the latest information derived from Inc42’s on-ground editorial team.

We have unearthed some of the most critical data points for the Indian startup ecosystem over the years.

Over the years, we have interacted with hundreds of founders, investors, funds, family offices, corporates, business schools, universities, government entities and other stakeholders on what is the key ingredient missing in the ecosystem, which would make India a more formidable market for new ventures?

Many of them told us, it’s all down to data.

Subscriptions of DataLabs by Inc42 are available for individuals users and businesses. Besides reports, it will give you access to much more! The individual user subscription gives one access to 12+ upcoming reports. It also gives you access to the complete DataLabs reports archive.

If you are obsessed with data, like we all are, subscribe and give us your feedback!

We are improving with every report to make sure DataLabs adds value to your professional lives!

P.S. The DataLabs reports and insights have been quoted in the renowned Mary Meeker’s annual report, Business Insider, The Economist and Forbes, among over 100 reputed global publications. In just under 2 months of its private launch, Inc42 DataLabs got over 100+ annual subscriptions. All thanks to our exclusive insights about startups and investments, and of course our loyal readers!