India's savvy equilibrium
The Realistic Optimist is a paid newsletter covering the globalized startup scene.
It is read by people at Endeavor, Sturgeon Capital, Quona Capital and more.
The Realistic Optimist’s work has been published in Maddyness UK, Tech in Asia and TechCabal.
Biography
Rishaad Currimjee is the general partner at Golden Sparrow, an Indian venture capital firm.
Prior to Golden Sparrow, Rishaad spent over 2 decades across investment management on Wall Street, co-founding and operating Indian start-ups and managing family businesses in Mauritius.
India’s talent is now building its own unicorns, rather than solely outsourcing for Western corporations. How did that shift occur?
More than a decade ago, daring entrepreneurs set out to build tech companies modeled on what worked in the West.
Think Flipkart, the “Indian Amazon”, valued at around $35B. Or Paytm, an IPO’d fintech company whose market cap sits around $2.5B. Indian talent realized it wasn’t doomed to work for Oracle. The genie was out of the bottle.
This “first wave” of startups trained and inspired founders in India today. The flywheel had kicked off.
Launching a startup in India has also become easier. Introduced in 2016, UPI (an instant payment system/protocol) boosted digital payments and reduced India’s reliance on cash. This has been a boon for anyone wanting to make a payment - whether for an e-commerce purchase or a software product.
The ecosystem has been moving in the right direction: funding increased, legislation improved… but more importantly, Indian talent realized it could build in India, not only in San Francisco. That talent component explains the Indian ecosystem’s rise.
We are entering a new phase. The first wave of startups could be classified as “India for India”. Now, Indian tech companies are eyeing global markets. This is especially true of SaaS and deeptech startups. Freshworks, India’s first NASDAQ-listed SaaS company, is a prime example.
Source: Bain India Venture Capital Report 2024
How can other countries initiate that shift?
It is about talent. You need the talent to stay and launch companies at home. Since salaries and opportunities remain plentiful in the West, you need another pull. Pride is a good one.