Indian startups solving country's problems, tapping opportunities, and no longer importing ideas: Kunal Bahl

Kunal Bahl, Chairman CII National Startups Council and co-founder Snapdeal and Titan Capital, has said that Indian startups which were earlier "bringing" business models of other countries and replicating those in India, are now increasingly solving the nation's problems or tapping into India's opportunities.

"Founders were earlier bringing those models to India and investors were also funding those business models because they were proven in some other part of the world," Bahl said in a recent CII podcast.

"But now over a period of time what we are seeing is that entrepreneurs are much more interested in India to solve our India problems or tap into India opportunities."

He stressed that the startup ecosystem in India has definitely arrived for good. From just 350 odd DPIIT registered startups a decade ago, it is now at upwards of 110,000, with many possibly active but not yet registered.

"The excitement that exists in the country, the opportunity that exists in the country, and the fact that the smartest people in the country, irrespective of their age, saying 'I want to take destiny in my own hands and I have an ambition to create something'," Bahl noted.

To all the startups, he suggested they focus on one problem statement at a time.

On startups contribution to Viksit Bharat goal, he said technology now is a differentiator that was earlier missing.

"It is different this time, and the reason is technology. Now we have the range which is the entire India Stack, UPI, Aadhaar, Health Stack, etc., which is ensuring that there is seamless connectivity. Government's transparency has gone up, meritocracy has gone up."

Bahl said India's startup ecosystem has left no sector untouched.

"Over a period of time, we have also seen entrepreneurs are now solving problems across the length and breadth of the country geographically, and across sectors also."

Bahl said India's startup ecosystem has left no sector untouched and is becoming a job provider.

"Startups are leveraging technology in doing day-to-day tasks and ensuring that there is employment being created for people who otherwise struggle to have regular employment."
Speaking on policy, he said the government has done quite a lot, and its Fund of Funds scheme has helped a lot. He suggested that Fund of funds allocation could be scaled up.

The Centre created Fund of Funds for Startups (FFS) Scheme in 2016 with a corpus of Rs 10,000 crore to provide much-needed boost to the Indian startup ecosystem and enable access to domestic capital. The scheme does not directly invest in startups, instead provides capital to SEBI-registered Alternative Investment Fund (AIFs), known as daughter funds, who in turn invest money in growing Indian startups through equity and equity-linked instruments.