India can become second largest start-up ecosystem, says R Chandrasekaran

Country is becoming an innovation destination and that is how we want to rebrand the whole industry, he said

India has the potential to become the second largest start-up system in the world after the US, in a year or two, if the current trend of start-up growth is expected to continue, said R Chandrasekaran, chairman of National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom). He said that there is an opportunity for the large companies to work with start-upss to enhance the performance of both the parties.

Speaking in the Nasscom Product Conclave 2015 organised in Chennai, Chandrasekaran said, “India is already the fourt largest in terms of start-up ecosystem after  the US, UK and Israel. The  Economic Survey 2014-15 has stated there was a huge growth in technology start-ups during the year.

“India is becoming an innovation destination and that is how we want to rebrand the whole industry,” said Chandrasekaran. He added that there were 3,100 start-ups and 300-400 product firms started establishing products and services in the sector. Nasscom has started a 10,000 Start-ups programme with an aim to have around 10,000 start-ups by the end of 2020. However, the growth of start-ups is very fast that now it is expecting to touch the 10,000 target by 2017 or even before that. He added that the opportunity emerging is that for the companies to develop products for the domestic market and considering that India is one of the toughest market in terms of satisfying the customers, once a product is successful in India, it could be modified to make it suitable for any other parts of the world.

He added the large SI firms in the software industry are looking for partnership with start-ups, which can bring in innovation and agility to the strengths of the larger company.

There are already around 50-60 such partnerships between large firms and start-ups going in various stages. He added that the start up companies also have a situation at present, where they have enough access to capital, since the angel, VC, and Private Equity firms are looking at funding the start-ups, which has the right strengths and could grow multifold in a short period of time.