India’s Silicon Valley Is No Longer The Startup Hub

The Delhi-National Capital Region has pipped Bengaluru, India’s Silicon Valley, to become the startup hub of the country.

That’s according to a report by TiE Delhi-NCR and Zinnov. Titled ‘Turbocharging Delhi-NCR Start-up Ecosystem’, the report said Delhi-NCR not only has the highest number of startups in the country, but also the most number of unicorns.

Delhi-NCR is home to over 7,000 startups founded between 2009 and 2019 and 10 unicorns—startups valued at more than $1 billion. Bengaluru and Mumbai have 5,234 and 3,829 startups, respectively, the report said. Within Delhi-NCR, the national capital alone has nearly 4,491 startups.

Some of the unicorns based in Delhi-NCR are Delhivery, OYO, Paytm, Zomato and Policybazaar, to name a few.

“With concerted focus on the most important areas, Delhi NCR has the potential to become a Top 5 global hub for startups, lead innovation across many sectors, create many more startups and have at least 30 unicorns by 2025,” Rajan Anandan, president of TiE Delhi-NCR, said in the statement.

The region, according to the report, is also home to five of the most-valued startups in India, and also three of the four listed internet companies—Info Edge (India) Ltd., MakeMyTrip Ltd. and IndiaMart Intermesh Ltd.

The cumulative market value of Delhi-NCR-based startups is pegged at $50 billion, while the overall market value of startups in Bengaluru is $32-37 billion, the report said.

The pace of new startups being founded, however, has slowed considerably since 2015 in Delhi-NCR, and also across India.

While 1,657 startups were founded in 2015 in NCR, the number dwindled to 420 in 2018. In the first of 2019 only 142 startups were funded, the report said.

Access to capital across all stages of funding needs to be improved, with special focus on early- and seed-stage funds, the report said.