Seven years ago a band of volunteers came together to move the Indian software product ecosystem into the next orbit. Three years ago this movement became a think tank, iSPIRT. We pioneered the idea of building public goods without public money in India. Today, India has many software product Unicorns and many more are in the making. We are doing one M&A a month. India Stack is reshaping many...
Several notable announcements have been made by RBI and MCA pursuant to iSPIRT’s Stay-in-India Checklist (discussed in my earlier post here). In its bi-monthly monetary policy statement released earlier today, RBI has stated that it will take steps to contribute to an ecosystem that is conducive for growth of startups. It is noteworthy that each of the points in the policy framework released by...
Getting up at 4am in the morning and discovering 200 founders lined up at Madiwala, to catch the bus before the scheduled departure, instantly reminded me of the huge line of techies in front of the American Consulate at Annasalai for my H1B visa, two decades ago 🙂 Super pune gang @PNgrowth – @SarangLakare @amitdmishra @aballabh @vinaynathan @99sachins pic.twitter.com/fcfx6KCqxf — Abhijit...
$8B of venture investment went into Indian startups in 2015 alone! Four firms–Ola Cabs, Flipkart, Snapdeal, Paytm–accounted for 32% of these investments. However, on the M&A side, things have been slow. Since 2011, there have been approximately 190 transactions valued at a total of $2.3B (about $11M per deal), placing India way behind the U.S., Israel, and other startup...
It was an eventful Friday morning – 7 buses with more than 200 attendees made their way to Infosys campus, Mysore, the venue for a 3-day entrepreneurial retreat. #PNGROWTH 2016, was handcrafted by iSPIRT foundation and academia professionals of Stanford and Duke school of businesses for Indian Start-ups. Each bus was assigned a bus facilitator and Pallav Nadhani, who set the ice-breaker...
Last weekend witnessed a glitzy startup event. In many ways, this event was like every other startup event in India — founders of “unicorn” startups dispensing gyaan to the rest of us mortals interspersed by some disinterested folks featuring in hackneyed panel discussions on done-to-death topics in front of an uninterested audience who had suddenly rediscovered the hidden joys buried deep in...
Innovation and entrepreneurship are cornerstones of sustained economic growth. The Government has done well to recognise this by launching the Startup India Action Plan. The event was an unprecedented and resounding success. The energy in entrepreneurs, leaders of unicorns, seasoned investors, Government officials, etc was intense and, for most part, contagious. No doubt the Startup India Action...
There was palpable excitement all around on June 16th as the much awaited Startup India policy was to be unveiled. Scores of intrepid, passionate, dedicated, knowledgeable volunteers from multiple groups had worked tirelessly for very many months advocating the need for the administration to recognise startups as legitimate 21st century vehicles for creating jobs and wealth in society. For this...
Dear iSPIRT Family, I wanted to follow up with an update from the PNgrowth team at iSPIRT. A little less than a year ago, a small group of iSPIRT volunteers proposed something unconventional: We would run a bootcamp to jolt 200 growth stage entrepreneurs from India to aspire to category leadership. The bootcamp would combine learnings from strategy courses taught at Duke and Stanford with...
Today’s Economic Times carries an article about “The Dark Secret of India’s Start-up Boom”. This implores the Modi Government to make bold moves regarding the onerous regulations that startups face. iSPIRT is also part of the new Startup Bridge India campaign, which urges the Indian government to adopt best practices from around the globe to help startups start, flourish and exit. We’ve...
