'Service-led culture driving start-up growth'

Enablement of Internet, cloud and high penetration of mobile phone and 3G services are driving the growth of product-based technology start-up companies.

According to the National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom), every year 100-150 start-up companies are being formed. In the last 3-4 years, 400-500 tech start-ups have already come up in India.

Nasscom senior vice-president Sangeeta Gupta said India’s service-led culture was driving the growth where a large segment of research goes for product designing and quality services. India has a large pool of researchers, engineers and product developers, who play a role in the growth factor.

The 500 start-up companies, which were tracked by Nasscom (as on March 31, 2011), had contributed $ 250 million (Rs 1,125 crore) to the country’s economy last year. “We expect the share in the revenue to grow at a higher rate in the coming years as the start-up eco-system is emerging,” she said on the sidelines of the recently held 2nd International Patient safety Congress here.

Nasscom has created a database to track the startups. “We are in discussion with the UID authorities to create an eco-system for them. Right now, it's at the conceptual stage,” she said.

The association expects the Indian software industry to touch $ 88 billion by this year from $ 76 billion last year.

According to the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), the country would have 1.2 million engineering graduates in the next couple of years. Nasscom may come up with a new transformational model to create more employment and to meet the demand, Gupta said.

Currently, the software industry (both IT and BPO sector) employs 250,000, of which 56 per cent is from smaller towns. “For this year, around 2.75 million hiring is expected. Our focus would be to see growth opportunities in Tier II cites such as Visakhapatnam, Jaipur, Mysore and Coimbatore for employment,” she said.