youngest startup ecosystem in the world - Bangaluru

As stated in a survey, Bangaluru has the youngest startup ecosystem in the world, with the average founder's age at 28.5 years. In Silicon Valley, the world's largest startup hub, the average age is eight years older than in Bengaluru at 36.2 years. Kuala Lumpur comes closest to Bengaluru, at 30.5 years, followed by Sao Paulo, 31.7 years, and Berlin, 31.8%. Sydney has the highest average age among startup founders, at 40.3 years, according to The Startup Ecosystem report by San Francisco-based Compass, a research firm that provides global benchmarking tools. "This industry itself is only five years old and a person with 15 or more years of experience or knowledge will not add value. Youngsters will understand them better. Venture capitalists also prefer younger entrepreneurs, those who are around 30 years of age," said Mohan Kumar, executive director at venture capital firm Norwest Venture Partners India. The report noted that finds that Bengaluru moved up four positions to rank 15 in 2015 among the top 20 startup ecosystems, advancing from rank 19 in the 2012 ranking. It was amongst those who made the biggest leaps. Bengaluru saw the most growth in seed fund rounds over the last three years, with an annual average growth of 53%. It was followed by Sydney (33%) and Austin (30%). According to the report, which was compiled with the help of global startup database CrunchBase, Bengaluru has done well in the funding parameter with a rank of 6, just below Chicago.  Bengaluru accounts for more than a third of the over 1,000 global inhouse centres (GICs) - facilities that combine technology development with back-office functions - of MNCs in India. US oil and gas major Exxon Mobil, one of the world's biggest companies, is making a $400-500 million (Rs 2,500 crore-Rs 3,150 crore) investment in Bengaluru to establish a technical and business support services centre. Derivatives marketplace CME Group, which handles 3 billion contracts worth approximately $1 quadrillion (that's 1 followed by 15 zeros) annually, is said to be setting up a GIC in Bengaluru.  JCPenny, the leading American apparel and home furnishing retailer, L Brands, makers of lingerie brand Victoria's Secret, and Lowe's, the US-based home improvement and appliance store chain, have established technology captive centres here recently. Payments technology company Visa is establishing an inhouse R&D centre in Bengaluru that will hire 1,000 people over the next three years. Payments solutions major Network International, wholly owned by Emirates NBD Bank, is looking to hire 300 people in the city to set up a GIC.  alit Ahuja, co-founder of ANSR Consulting, a firm that's helping Fortune 500 companies establish strategic offshore captive centres in India, says Bengaluru has the right mix of talent, and contextual business expertise. 
The start ups are brewing up in other cities like Pune, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Chennai too. Bu the report states that Bangalore boasts an incredibly youthful startup ecosystem, with the youngest average founders’ age of all the top 20 ecosystems,”. Along with a strong IT infrastructure that brings large pool of techies and cosmopolitan culture, Bengaluru has other advantages in terms of educational and entrepreneurial institutes. For instance, it has has the science centre of India with more than 100 R&D centres, largest number of engineering colleges and a pleasant climate. It is also known to be the backbone of India’s outsourcing industry.

But in the flipside, Bangaluru might not be the hub of ‘most profitable’ start ups. Vijay Anand of TheStartupCentre  states that “Bangalore definitely hosts the highest density of startups, but I dont think it’s the startup hub of India. In terms of sheer “profitable” companies, for example, Delhi beats Bangalore hands down. Pune is an emerging ecosystem. Chennai has the maximum number of SaaS startups (is becoming the SaaS hub of India). The startup that is currently making waves and is an inspiration for many product companies emerging out of Chennai is Girish Mathrubootham co-founded Freshdesk. The provider of SaaS-based customer support platform for enterprises, has secured $44 million in funding till date which includes a $31 million in a Series D round of funding by investors Tiger Global Management, Accel Partners and Google Capital. Another startup from Chennai that has captured global attention is Indix. Founded by Sanjay Parthasarathy and Sridhar Venkatesh in 2012, Nexus Venture backed Indix is a big data startup that is building a catalogue of over 1 billion consumer products from all over the world. Their intention is to help brands to be able to compare their prices, thereby assisting them to make crucial business decisions.

So it feels like India is a multi-hub ecosystem, not a single location one,”. Though Bengaluru is an open ground for breeding entrepreneurs, other cities seem to be catching up soon. Pune and Chandigarh are believed to be at the forefront, some other also vouch for Chennai and Delhi.


As with its plurality, India never had a niche centric city and the its resources were non-independent, which means every start up might not find everything at the same place neither every type of start up will grow everywhere. Moreover, the talent pools too are scattered and segregated. For example, the south Indians states such as Tamil Nadu, Andhra etc. are incredibly good in math, coding, numeric, measurement, architecture etc. where are the ideation , art, imagination are from states like Kerala, Bengal. The northern states are hardworking, confident and expressive. Gujrat and Rajasthan holds the best in business and commercial know-how. So, in future, the startup maps will see scattered concentration on expertise based clusters in various cities.