India is amongst the top five countries in the world in terms of startups.
US ranks number one on the list with 83,000+ startups while India is picking up pace with 10000+ and growing. Recently the Prime Minister of India Mr. Narendra Modi launched an ambitious program called 'Startup India Standup India'. This is aimed at accelerating the startup revolution in India and is already witnessing strong traction. At such a momentous time when Indian Entrepreneurship is making its mark on the world, lets take a look at the heroes at the helm of this revolution:
1. Sachin Bansal, Flipkart
No Indian Startup story can begin without mentioning FlipKart, India's largest ecommerce company. Currently valued at over USD 17 Billion, it is also amongst top 10 ecommerce companies in the world. Sachin Bansal along with pal Binny Bansal spawned this billion-dollar behemoth from a small apartment in Bangaluru in 2007. Initially starting out as an online books seller, Flipkart had now expanded to numerous consumer categories.
2. Kunal Bahl, Snapdeal
A US return ex Microsoft employee, Kunal Bahl founded Snapdeal in 2008 as a daily deals site but then changed directions to follow in footsteps of Flipkart as a conventional ecommerce site. Snapdeal boasts both Indian and international investors such as SoftBank Corp, Ratanji Tata to name a few.
3. Bhavish Aggarwal, Ola
India's answer to Uber, Ola has become a household name in our country. With extremely competitive prices and wonderfully tight services, this online taxi and cabs aggregator has made the world sit up and take notice. Ola cabs and auto-rickshaws run in 80+ cities in India today. Bhavish established Ola in 2010 and is evaluated at USD 5 Billion today.
4. Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Paytm
Vijay started One97 as telecoms software company that later evolved into Paytm in 2009. An online marketplace for epayments and mobile credit recharges, Paytm features in the list of top 5 highest funded startups of India. Paytm enticed Alibaba to inject nearly a billion dollars in their venture and that proves that they are here and here to stay.
5. Pranay Chulet, Quikr
One of the youngest entrepreneurs to make this list, Pranay is the poster child of the IIT and then the IIM to have graduated and then shot up to reach for the stars. He founded Kijiji in 2008 and then rechristened it to Quikr. This startup morphed to become India's largest portal for online classifieds and continues to grow and attract international funding.
6. Naveen Tiwari, InMobi
Another IIT Alum, Naveen co-founded a smaller startup Mkhoj in 2007 which he later pivoted to InMobi, a mobile ad platform. InMobi made history as the largest venture capital funding in India at that time.
7. Deepinder Goyal, Zomato
You were waiting to see if Zomato made it to this list weren't you?
At number 7 in all India ranking of best-funded startups is Zomato and its cofounder Deepinder Goyal. What started out as a hobby for him then made history! Zomato revolutionized the way we eat out and order our food. Active in 22 countries Zomato is a global presence and a billion dollar company.