How fast is India’s start-up universe expanding? Explained in 7 charts

Over the years, start-ups are struggling more to garner funds as they pass the elementary stages of growth

There are nearly 30,000 start-ups in India, supported by an ecosystem of availability of finance, talent, connectivity, and incubation facilities. How strong is the ecosystem? A report by TiE Delhi NCR and Zinnov answers this question.

How fast is India’s start-up universe expanding? At the national level, the start-up universe expanded at the fastest pace in 2015, after which the pace started receding (Chart 1). Only 800 new start-ups have risen in the first six months of 2019, while 2015 had seen nearly 7,000 start-ups come up.

What keeps the start-ups ecosystem lubricated? Funding. Over the years, start-ups are struggling more to garner funds as they pass the elementary stages of growth (Chart 2).

Seed-stage deals have also receded over time (Chart 3), raising concerns about the health and endurance of the start-up ecosystem.

Where are the start-ups concentrated? Delhi takes up a quarter of the pie, with more than 7,000 start-ups in operation since 2009 (Chart 4).

And how strong is the ecosystem in Delhi? As against having 23 per cent of India’s start-ups, Delhi has fewer than 10 per cent of India’s incubators, accelerators, and corporate innovation programmes (Chart 5).

And who starts start-ups? They are mostly engineers. Delhi lags Bengaluru in terms of supply of such engineers. In fact, the institutions that produce engineers are not very high either (Chart 6).

Finally, what do these start-ups do? Most start-ups in India are in the consumer space and e-commerce (Chart 7). The B2B ecosystem needs to be bolstered, the data suggests.

StatsGuru is a weekly feature. Every Monday, Business Standard guides you through the numbers you need to know to make sense of the headlines; Compiled by BS Research Bureau