Asides

15 Stories to Help You Navigate the World of Startups in India

The idea of starting a company has never been more popular in India. A new breed of entrepreneurs is rising in the country, inspired by home-grown heroes, driven to pursue extraordinary outcomes and supported by an ecosystem that is willing to back audacious ideas.

Startup Compass offers advice on starting and growing a company, shared in a lecture series at IIM Ahmedabad and over extensive interviews by fifteen iconic Indian entrepreneurs. Meet these icons of the startup ecosystem!

 

Abhiraj Bhal, Urban Company
Abhiraj has a golden touch and excels in everything he does – be it academics (IIM Ahmedabad and IIT Kanpur), work (Boston Consulting Group), sports (avid tennis and squash player) and now with UC, making a dent in the home services market.

 

Anand Daniel, Accel Partners
Anand, Partner at Accel, is India’s oracle, having led marquee investments in Swiggy, Spinny, Vedantu, among others. He has been investing in startups since 2006, initially with Intel Capital in Silicon Valley and later with Flybridge Capital Partners in Boston.

 

Anu Hariharan, Y Combinator Continuity Fund
Having seen the best across the world, Anu is Managing Director and Partner at Y Combinator’s Continuity Fund, where she has worked with leading companies across the globe including Brex, Groww, Monzo, among others. Anu was earlier an investment partner at Andreessen Horowitz.

 

Deep Kalra, MakeMyTrip
The pioneer of online travel bookings in India, Deep Kalra founded MakeMyTrip in April 2000. He started up when entrepreneurship was still largely unheard of. Deep, an alumnus of IIM Ahmedabad and St Stephen’s, is a founder member of Ashoka University.

 

Falguni Nayar, Nykaa
After reaching the apex of the corporate world as managing director of Kotak Mahindra Bank, Falguni followed her passion to set up Nykaa. India’s wealthiest woman billionaire, Falguni took Nykaa public in 2021. She is a graduate of IIM Ahmedabad.

 

Girish Mathrubootham, Freshworks
Widely considered the guru of the SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) revolution in India, Girish is the founder of Freshworks. His firm is a truly global company with a clientele across the globe. Girish took his company public in 2021 on Nasdaq, USA.

 

Kunal Shah, FreeCharge, CRED
One of the most networked people in the startup space, Kunal sold his first company, FreeCharge, for USD 450 million. While most people retire after a solid pay cheque, Kunal marched on to start CRED. A prolific angel investor, he was also an advisor to Y Combinator and Sequoia Capital.

 

Raghunandan G., TaxiForSure
Raghunandan G., an IIM Ahmedabad and NIT Surathkal alumnus, transformed India’s commute with TaxiForSure (TFS). After selling TFS to Ola, Raghu has embarked upon his second innings with his next startup, Zolve.

 

Rajan Anandan, Sequoia Capital
Rajan has built Surge, a rapid scale-up programme for startups, in India and Southeast Asia. Prior to Sequoia, he headed Google India and Southeast Asia, and before that, he led Microsoft and Dell in India and was a partner at McKinsey & Company in Chicago.

 

Ritesh Agarwal, OYO
A college dropout at the age of seventeen, Ritesh founded Oravel in 2012, which morphed into OYO in 2013. OYO has revolutionized the budget-hotel category worldwide and is one of the biggest unicorns from India. Ritesh is one of the youngest self- made billionaires in the world.

 

Sachin Bansal, Flipkart, Navi
Sachin Bansal is the CEO of Navi and former chairman and co-founder of Flipkart, India’s leading e-commerce marketplace, acquired by Walmart in 2018.

 

Sanjeev Bikhchandani, Info Edge
A pioneer of India’s internet space, Sanjeev Bikhchandani is the man behind InfoEdge, which owns portals for job search (Naukri, Naukrigulf), matrimony (Jeevansathi), real estate (99acres) and education (Shiksha). In January 2020, he was awarded the Padma Shri by the government of India.

 

Sahil Barua, Delhivery
A former consultant at Bain and Company, Sahil is the CEO of the recently publicly listed company, Delhivery. During his consulting days, Sahil worked across private equity, telecom, healthcare and consumer products spaces. With no logistics experience, he has built one of the biggest logistics company!

 

Tarun Mehta, Ather Energy
A graduate of IIT Madras, Tarun is building the (electric vehicle) EV space in India with Ather Energy, one of the largest two wheeler EV manufacturers in the country. He has been associated with over a dozen prototypes and has six co-patents (pending) to his name.

 

Yashish Dahiya, Policybazaar
A revolutionary of the insurance space, Yashish is co-founder and group CEO of Policybazaar.com. Yashish is an avid sportsperson and has received his education from IIT Delhi, IIM Ahmedabad and INSEAD.

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