Pandemic helps diversify India’s startup ecosystem
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Pandemic helps diversify India’s startup ecosystem
Sindhu Hariharan / TNN / Jun 16, 2021, 04:00 IST
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Chennai: A maturing ecosystem and more recently the pandemic has led to the democratization of the country’s startup arena, and reduced the disproportionate investor interest enjoyed by founders from IITs, IIMs and similar ‘elite’ educational institutions.
Data from research firm Tracxn show that among top 20 startups who raised early stage investment each year, the proportion of founders belonging to institutions other than IIT or IIM is on the rise. For instance, in 2015, 70% of the top funded startups had either IIT or IIM grads as founders, in 2020 this was down to 44%. Early stage investments (seed and Series A rounds) are typically the toughest for founders to crack, where alma mater plays a huge role in convincing VCs to take a bet on them. While the pedigree bias still