Over 1,300 startups added in 2019, over 8,900 tech-startups in India now: Nasscom

With the addition of more than 1,300 startups this year so far, India continues to reinforce its position as the third-largest startup ecosystem in the world, according to IT industry body Nasscom. The total number of tech startups in the country has grown to 8,900-9,300 with 1,300 startups being added this year so far. India also witnessed the addition of seven Unicorns this year till August taking the total tally to 24 - the third-highest number of Unicorns (companies with a valuation of over USD 1 billion) in a single country in the world.

The startups have created an estimated 60,000 direct jobs and 1.3-1.8 lakh indirect jobs, Nasscom said in a report. According to the report, investment in start-ups was steady with USD 4.4 billion flowing in between January-September this year across 450 start-ups - up 5 percent year-on-year (y-o-y).

The funding saw a huge spike in early stages (series A, B as well) with USD 1.6 billion being recorded and growing at 70 percent y-o-y. The trend witnessed over the year was that start-ups are driving focus more towards the B2B space and almost half of the country's start-ups are offering enterprise-focused services, it said.

Over 18 percent of all start-ups in India are now leveraging deep-tech, which means there are over 1,600 such companies in India. This number constituted only 8 percent of start-ups incepted in 2014, and has seen a 40 percent CAGR (compound annual growth rate) over the past five years, the report said. The start-up landscape in the country is becoming the epitome of innovation, with companies bringing out solutions that are aimed at solving locally relevant issues, Nasscom President Debjani Ghosh said.

"However, to stimulate innovation, government and corporates need to focus on increasing their role as prominent stakeholders playing the part of venture capitalists and providing the appropriate market access, funding, and guidance to seed-stage start-ups," she added. Ghosh said the Indian start-up ecosystem has come a long way in providing a level playing field for innovators to flourish by strengthening capabilities and fostering co-creation.

"The next wave of growth will be at the junction of convergence of technologies, where different sectors will embrace digital to re-define their operations," she added. Nasscom aims to accelerate the startup ecosystem in India significantly by 2025.

This entails increasing the number of unicorns to 95-105 potentially and the cumulative valuation to USD 350-390 billion.

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