A focus on startup ecosystem in India

A startup is a juvenile company that begins with a solo-founder or co-founders. A startup aims to solve a problem by developing a unique service or product. Startup companies get initial finance from friends & family along with the founder’s investment. The first challenge startups face is that they have to prove the legitimacy of their startup model to investors. Their first mission is to raise a significant amount of finance to upgrade their developed product. In the initial stage, startups have an idea that they are willing to develop. They have very little money to test and launch the product in the market that’s why they are looking for financial backing to lift them from the ground.

Here are some financial sources that startups can look for:

• Getting a business loan from banks, a loan granted by governments & non-profit organizations.
• Getting investment from angel investors & venture capitalists who are looking for a startup that can give big returns.
• Startups can get initial funding from incubators which are often associated with college and university.

Startups can be of two types:

Funded by Investor: In this type, the startup runs with the investor funding. India’s 90% startup company falls in this category and they mainly focus on growth.

Bootstrapped: In this type, the startup runs with the investment which comes from self, friends, or family and profit from the business. Their main aim is to get profit and this type of investment is known as bootstrapping. 

The first step for any startup is to get recognized by the government and for that, you have to register your company in Startup India which is an online platform. By doing so, you will get new schemed tax benefits such as granting tax relief for three years. You can easily get funding from angel investors which is low-risk funding.

Here are some of the latest startups in India which are listed below:

• Neobank Juno: It is a mobile payment podium that basically relies on Nuo protocol & Ethereum block chain. Juno brings the podium under the decentralized segment of banking. With this technology, the company’s motive is to decentralize the borrowing & lending of digital assets. Moreover, Neobank Juno is looking to generate huge yielding accounts for its users or customers. This will permit their users or customers to maximize their savings by 5.5 percent every year. This startup company was founded by Varun Deshpande, Ratnesh Ray & Siddharth Verma in the year 2019. Neobank Juno till now bagged 3 million dollars in seed-stage funding which was led by Sequoia Capital & Polychain Capital, India.

• Airmeet: It is a virtual events platform that is made for community builders, event organizers, enterprises, and marketers. It was launched in 2019. You can host a meeting with thousands of users with complete privacy & security. With the help of Airmeet, you can do various events like meetups, summit, town halls, fairs, expos, and many more. It is easy to use and you don’t have to install any external software for this.

• Bijak: It is a B2B trade platform for an agritech sector that helps in keeping track of transactions, logistics, and pricing. It is made for wholesalers, food processors, and traders. It was founded in 2019 by Nikhil Tripathi, Mahesh Jakhotia, DayaRai, NukulUpadhye, and DayaRai. Its main objective is to improve the accountability in agritech sector. It has a funding of $2.5 million and it is expecting to grow more. It is likely to expand its services like payment and logistics. This platform provides zero cost trade for sellers & buyers.

• Konfinity: It is an Edtech company that was founded by Navratan Singh & Kamal Panday in the year 2018. It is a Noida based startup. Konfinity is basically an AI (artificial intelligence) platform that provides 6 month-long courses in web development, UI/UX, software programming, & data science. The company has merged with twelve colleges till now & is serving over two-thousand students in India. The company also prepares students to get the placement in top tech organizations besides training & also without any upfront cost. Konfinity is now planning to add other courses such as graphics, DevOps, animation, Internet of Things (IoT), & many more to its list.