New Start-up Hub of India

The “Turbocharging Delhi-NCR Startup Ecosystem” report issued by TiE Delhi-NCR and consulting firm Zinnov has observed that Delhi-NCR is a bigger start-up hub than Bangalore.

The report notes that NCR not only beats Bangalore in the number of active start-ups, the region also has more number of unicorns (a privately held startup company valued at over $1 billion), the highest cumulative private market valuation, and has three of the four most valuable listed Internet companies in India.

What does the Report Say?

• The NCR of Delhi has 7,039 active start-ups (defined as companies incepted in the last 10 years) versus 5,234 in Bangalore.
• Mumbai stood a distant third with about 3,829 start-ups.
• Hyderabad, Pune, and Chennai have less than 2000 active ones each.
• Within NCR, Delhi hosted the biggest chunk with about 4,491 start-ups; Gurgaon has 1,544 while Noida 1004.
• The NCR has made a great stride in the segments of consumer product and services start-ups, in enterprise products and e-commerce.
• The Delhi NCR region also has more unicorns than any other city – 10 unicorns versus the nine of Bangalore.
• The 10 unicorns are Oyo Rooms, Paytm, Delhivery, Hike, Rivigo, Zomato, Policybazaar, Snapdeal, ReNew Power and Paytm Mall.
• The NCR region contributes more than 50 per cent of the cumulative private market valuation in the Indian start-up ecosystem. While NCR has a cumulative valuation of $46-56 billion, Bangalore totals $32-37 billion and Mumbai $10-12 billion.
• The pace at which the new start-ups are being founded has slowed considerably since 2015 in NCR (in India as well).
• While 1,657 start-ups were founded in 2015 in NCR, the number dwindled to 420 in 2018, highlighting the need for a more active and bigger seed funding ecosystem.

How NCR emerged as a big Start-up Hub?

NCR has the biggest consumption market in the country. This sheer volume of NCR makes it exciting as a testbed. Further Bangalore’s traffic and congestion issues were also affecting growth.

The city of Banglore has grown beyond proportion and it doesn’t have the infrastructure. Various pockets have emerged in the city and they are all far away from the biggest hub of transportation, International Airport. As a result, people waste so much time travelling from the airport to any other hub in the city – whether it is MG Road, or Electronic City, or the Outer Ring Road, or Koramangala. This results in reduction in the productivity for the entire ecosystem.

Reaching Gurgaon, or the centre of Delhi from the airport isn’t a big deal; it is a mere 13 km to CyberHub and 15 km to Connaught Place.

Even though NCR has severe pollution problems during the winter months it beats Bangalore hands down in the infrastructure. Movement within the city of Bengaluru is extremely difficult.

The Ola Mobility Institute notes that Delhi’s average speed on roads is around 23 km per hour. While this seems low, it is still far higher than Bangalore’s 15.5 km per hour. Delhi also has nine times the operational network of metro (373 km) versus Bangalore (42 km).