After the national launch of 10,000 start-ups initiative recently, the Nasscom has begun a nationwide campaign to rope in industry associations, angel investors, incubation centres and academic institutes.
The initiative has caught the imagination of the start-up community. The Nasscom has already received over 150 applications so far, seeking a place in the initiative.
“We are going to build an ecosystem to support the large number of start-ups that are expected to come in the next 10 years,” Som Mittal, President of the National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom), said.
The number of start-ups had tripled in the country to 450 last year from 162 in 2006, particularly around the hubs of Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune and Kolkata.
Cloud and Big Data (analysing huge piles of information) topped the list with 32 per cent, followed by education (29 per cent), mobile (21 per cent) and social media (18 per cent).
Products
Som Mittal said the time was right for the development of product companies.
“Why we didn’t have many product companies was because we were selling products to enterprises. But mass consumption of mobile applications would certainly drive the product companies,” he said.
In order to foster the start-ups, the Nasscom will develop a newer model to promote early stage investments, a key phase in the life of a start-up. “The state of early stage investments in the country is very fragile. You need to expand this. It is not just about money. They need advice and some tasks such as managing marketing and auditing. We will encourage high network professionals to step in,” he said.
He signed agreements with the The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), Hyderabad Angels and International Institute of Information Technology (Hyderabad) to make them partners in the initiative.
“Majority of the start-ups would be IP (intellectual property) based. We are expecting at least 15 companies that are worth $ 1 billion by the end of the 10-year period,” the Nasscom President said.
“The biggest challenges are execution and monetisation of the idea. It is okay to fail but it is not acceptable when one refuses to learn from mistakes.”