It’s no secret that India is one of the largest tech hubs in the world. The country had the most tech exits in Asia as outlined in our 2015 Exits Report, and is home to high-flying unicorns like Olacabs, Snapdeal, and Flipkart.
To visualize the depth and breadth of India’s tech scene, we used CB Insights data and analytics to create a periodic table of tech in India, focused on startups and VC. The table below covers venture capital investors, accelerators, and angel investors. It also lists funded private companies in select industry categories that are particularly prominent in India, along with notable exits of India-based private companies.
The 147 companies and investors on the table were pulled from analysis using CB Insights data around funding, company momentum as captured by our Mosaic algorithms, and recent investments in the space.
Note: Click on the table below to expand.
We expect that this list will change over time as new entrants emerge and gain prominence and others falter, exit, and are removed. If you believe someone should be added, please leave a comment with your rationale.
Navigating the periodic table of tech in India:
The top part of the table lists private investor-backed companies in select industries, as well as notable investors in India.
The bottom two rows of the table outline notable exits of India-based companies.
We broke India tech down into the following categories:
India-based VC:
This category encompasses venture capital firms that are headquartered in India. The list includes India-based VCs like Kalaari Capital and Blume Ventures, among others.
Global VC investing in India:
These are VC firms that have a global presence and are heavily investing in India such as Norwest Venture Partners and Accel Partners. Some of these investors even have a satellite office with dedicated funds in India, like Sequoia Capital India.
Accelerator/Incubators:
This category includes India-based incubators and accelerators such as Mumbai-based VentureNursery.
Non-VC Investors:
This category is comprised of corporates, cross-over investors (i.e. normally public market-oriented investors) and more, and includes Tiger Global Management and Softbank, among others.
Corporate Venture Capital Firms:
These are corporations with dedicated venture arms actively investing in India. This category includes Intel Capital and Qualcomm Ventures among other CVCs.
Angel Groups:
This category counts angel groups that are based in India and includes Mumbai Angels and Indian Angel Network, among others.
Notable exits:
This includes India-based companies that have exited in the form of M&A or an IPO, including FreeCharge and Myntra, among others.
Categories:
Among the industry categories we selected are a few, including e-commerce & marketplaces, that have seen a large amount of deal activity in India.
- Unicorns – companies in this category include Uber-rival Olacabs, which raised a $275M in Q4’15 alone.
- E-commerce and marketplaces – startups here include furniture and home decor marketplace Pepperfry, which raised an $100M Series D in July 2015 led by Goldman Sachs and Zodius Capital, and had other backers as well.
- Fintech – this category encompasses digital banking startups as well as point-of-sale payment startups like Ezetap Mobile Solutions, which raised a $23.5M Series C in August 2015 from Social Capital and several others.
- Ed Tech – this category includes Toppr, an ed tech startup that offers assessment and practice packages for entrance exams in India. Toppr raised a $10M Series A in May 2015 led by Eight Roads Ventures India.
- Travel – this category includes budget-hotel-network startup Oyo Rooms which raised an $100M Series B in July 2015 led by Softbank.
- Video, Media, & Gaming – companies in this section span video, media, & gaming and includes mobile gaming startup MoonFrog Labs in the category. MoonFrog Labs raised a $15M Series A in March 2015 from Sequoia Capital India and Tiger Global Management.
- Delivery & Logistics – this category includes Grofers which wash highlighted as a future unicorn in the CB Insights/NY Times report, and also happens to be the most well-funded company in the category. Grofers has raised over $160M to date and raised an $120M Series C in November 2015 led by SoftBank and Tiger Global, among others.
- Health Tech – startups in this category include healthcare app Practo Technology, which raised a $90M Series C in August 2015 led by Tencent.
- Real estate tech – real estate listing and search company Housing.com is the most well-funded company in the category, and raised $14.7M in January 2016 from Softbank Capital.
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