Safeer Najumudeen

Bangalore is India's most overhyped startup city. I have been analyzing exit data across Indian cities, and the numbers surprised me. Bangalore receives 47% of India's startup funding. But generates only 31% of successful exits. Meanwhile, Delhi NCR shows a 0.67 cost-to-success ratio compared to Bangalore's 1.52. What does this mean? Every rupee invested in Delhi produces nearly 2x more exit value than in Bangalore. Here's what the data reveals: → Average operational costs 3x higher in Bangalore → Talent costs inflated by 40-60% due to competition → Infrastructure challenges are reducing productivity by 25% → Burn rates 200% higher than tier-2 cities Even established unicorns are rethinking their location strategy. BlackBuck recently relocated operations, citing 90-minute commutes affecting team productivity. This isn't about Bangalore vs other cities. It's about efficiency and sustainability. Some interesting patterns I have noticed: Tier-2 cities produce 26% of startups with 500+ employees despite receiving only 7% of total funding. That's remarkable efficiency. Companies in Pune, Hyderabad, and Chennai are building lean, profitable businesses from day one. Lower costs mean longer runways. Longer runways mean better decision-making. Better decisions lead to sustainable exits. The opportunity here isn't to abandon Bangalore. It's to recognize that great startups can emerge from anywhere. Founders in tier-2 cities often have advantages: → 2-3x longer runways with the same capital → Less competition for talent → Stronger focus on unit economics → Government support and incentives Maybe it's time we looked beyond the traditional startup hubs. Innovation doesn't need a Bangalore pin code. It needs the right problem, the right team, and the right execution. Curious to hear from founders across different cities, what's been your experience with costs and growth? #StartupEcosystem #IndianStartups #VentureCapital #Bangalore

432

112 Comments

In venture capital, ultimately “only a handful of companies per year actually matter”. Just 7 firms led the Series A of ~60% of startups in India that are worth $1B+ today. The list of firms leading investments in these cos is fairly predictable - PANZEL + Tiger Global. Full post on India's unicorn hunters in the comments

237

11 Comments

Two major trends, we at eka.care believe, are set to transform the landscape of healthcare digitisation in India: 1. Health AI: The rise of indigenous AI models tailored specifically for healthcare, driving purpose-driven innovations in the sector. 2. ABDM (Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission): A groundbreaking initiative enabling every Indian to digitally own and share their health records seamlessly, meticulously driven by National Health Authority (NHA) team. Our efforts are deeply aligned with these goals. A special thanks to the TechGraph team & Ajitesh Kaicker for spotlighting some of these ideas that define our mission at eka.care https://lnkd.in/guaPY7hx Deepak Tuli Amit Bharti Bhaskar Chaudhary Sankalp Gulati Neha Jagadeesh Vishal Kumar Tuniki Raghunandan gupta Pranjal Pandit Mohit Rajpal Sumit Kumar Rushabh Vasani Dr. Neelesh Kapoor Nikhil Kasukurthi Vasanth Murukuri Dr.Sanjana Sn Nura Almas Lourdes Dinesh Vishwesh Jainkuniya Trilok Yadav Saroj Kumar Sahu Arya Vashisht Shyamjith Palakkandy Nilaksh Kushwah Niharika Chaturvedi Karthick P Nadeemahmed Totad Divyesh Jivani Sam Dennis

241

13 Comments

Nine years into building ProcMart, I’ve sat with hundreds of SMB operators across India. From manufacturing to trading to distribution, the sectors vary, but their thinking doesn’t. Unlike most startup founders, these operators don’t obsess over CAC, DAUs, or net retention. Their north star is simpler: - Do customers come back without being nudged? - Are we making money on every transaction? If the answer is yes, they scale. If not, they fix what’s broken. No dashboards needed. Their playbook is built on first principles: - Know your margins down to the line item - Manage credit and cash like survival depends on it - Build relationships that last decades - Treat retention as a product outcome, not a marketing campaign There's no shortcut or growth hack, just consistent value creation. And because many of these are generational businesses, a short-term win that breaks trust can cost them not just a customer today, but an entire legacy. That kind of value obsession compounds over time. Customers come back. They bring others. And scale happens, not through hacks or clever campaigns, but through trust. It might sound boring or old school, but it works. Dashboards help. But durable companies are built on one truth: If people return on their own and pay you fair value for your product or service, you’re onto something. If they don’t, nothing else matters. Piyush Tiwari, SACHIN JAIN, Punit Sharma, Hitesh Lunawat, Raxit Bisht, Abhishek Kumar Singh, Aman P., Ankur Kandoi, Sanjana Kapoor, Abhishek Rana, krishnananda, Ashutosh Dhar

179

3 Comments

Predictions on the impact of the H1B order on India: - Migration to the US will slowdown even faster - India's Tier 1 consumer market will become even more attractive - Big IT companies will deploy $50B+ of cash to innovate rather than arbitrage - High-quality startup teams will increase - Civic sense will improve in metros - Remittances will drop - Real estate prices in metros will go up - Educational costs in premier schools will rise even faster - Obsession with moving to the US will drop I think this will be a huge net positive for India

4,050

259 Comments

Hey Kannur Startup Founders! Talrop’s Techies Park in Kannur is now opening its doors exclusively for startups! As part of its ongoing mission to empower startups in Kerala, Talrop is dedicated to helping founders build strong foundations for their ventures. Alongside this, Talrop also offers structured programs for students and graduates who aspire to become entrepreneurs. Startup Pathways include: Junior Innovators Program: a structured initiative for school students. School of Startups: tailored for college students alongside their studies. Founders Circle: a 6-month startup bootcamp for graduates preparing to build ventures. Startup Incubation: for individuals with a startup idea. Talrop provides a one-year free incubation program. These programs for startups from Kannur will be held at Talrop’s Techies Park, NAHER Arts & Science College, Kannur. With the right infrastructure, resources, mentorship, and connections, the Talrop ecosystem supports founders in accelerating their journey from idea to impact. This initiative is part of the upcoming launch of Talrop Ecosystem 6.0, scheduled for October.  This next version of the ecosystem is dedicated to creating global ventures. If you would like to apply for any of these programs, please refer to the first comment for application details. Thankfully, Safeer Najumudeen Co-founder & CEO, Talrop

123

3 Comments

Hey Kannur Startup Founders! Talrop’s Techies Park in Kannur is now opening its doors exclusively for startups! As part of its ongoing mission to empower startups in Kerala, Talrop is dedicated to helping founders build strong foundations for their ventures. Alongside this, Talrop also offers structured programs for students and graduates who aspire to become entrepreneurs. Startup Pathways include: Junior Innovators Program: a structured initiative for school students. School of Startups: tailored for college students alongside their studies. Founders Circle: a 6-month startup bootcamp for graduates preparing to build ventures. Startup Incubation: for individuals with a startup idea. Talrop provides a one-year free incubation program. These programs for startups from Kannur will be held at Talrop’s Techies Park, NAHER Arts & Science College, Kannur. With the right infrastructure, resources, mentorship, and connections, the Talrop ecosystem supports founders in accelerating their journey from idea to impact. This initiative is part of the upcoming launch of Talrop Ecosystem 6.0, scheduled for October. This next version of the ecosystem is dedicated to creating global ventures. If you would like to apply for any of these programs, please refer to the first comment for application details. Thankfully, Sobir Najumudeen Co-founder & CTO, Talrop

75

2 Comments

The August Edition of AIM Print is Out! From India’s AI agent gamble to a 91-year-old vibe coder, this issue is packed with stories that redefine how we think about technology, talent, and transformation. 👉 India’s AI Agent Gamble Startups like RevRag.AI (Ashutosh Singh), Gupshup (Beerud Sheth), gnani.ai (Ganesh Gopalan, Ananth Nagaraj), Floworks (Sudipta Biswas), Sarvam, Zoho (Ramprakash Ramamoorthy), AIonOS (CP Gurnani, Arjun Nagulapally), RagaAI Inc (Gaurav Agarwal), and Krutrim (Bhavish Aggarwal, Chandra Khatri, Navendu A, Sunit S.) are betting big on agentic AI—shaping everything from banking apps to conversational platforms. 👉 Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur: India’s Next Unicorn Hub With SIIC and FIRST, IIT-K is incubating product-led deep tech startups across AI, defence, and healthcare, powering India’s next wave of unicorns. 👉 Madhya Pradesh’s GCC Playbook Unlike Bengaluru or Hyderabad, MP is taking a unique approach to building GCCs—backed by a bold state policy. 👉 Game On, AI Style From Khelo India spotting young athletes to startups building video tracking and scouting tools, AI is revolutionising Indian sports. 👉 Locked Up, Logged In Meet Preston Thorpe, a software engineer at Turso, who codes in Rust and Python—contributing to databases and open-source projects from prison. 👉 MongoDB vs Databricks vs Snowflake As the battle moves into PostgreSQL, the rivalry intensifies—reshaping enterprise data strategies. 👉 Red Hat’s AI Feathers With open-source at its core, Red Hat is showing how global collaboration drives AI innovation. 👉 smallest.ai’s Global Play Sudarshan Kamath is building for the world first—before channeling gains back into India. 👉 91-Year-Old Vibe Coder John Blackman challenges age stereotypes by using Claude and Replit to build tools for his community. 👉 Indian IT’s New Reality From TCS’s bench policy change to soaring CEO salaries at HCLTech and mid-tier firms, the gap between boardroom and cubicle is widening. 👉 EkStep Foundation & BHASHINI - (Digital India BHASHINI Division) Shankar Maruwada shares why tech must serve those who need it most, while Bhashini builds a digital language backbone for India. This edition is a reminder: AI is not just about models—it’s about ambition, culture, resilience, and the people who push limits. Grab your copy of AIM Print August 2025 and see why this is our most talked-about edition yet: https://lnkd.in/gWrRb364

62

Looking to connect with founders who are solving problems which can make parts of our economy more efficient, like one of our Titan Capital portfolio company TyrePlex is doing. Let’s start with some big numbers that most people don’t know about. - India has a massive $13bn tyre market, yet over 90% of the over a lakh big and small dealers powering it are trapped in a shockingly inefficient, pre-digital world - They are overwhelmingly small, family-run businesses caught in a financial vise. They grapple with a category of maddening complexity - over 15k distinct tyre SKUs Result? They are forced to tie up enormous amounts of capital in slow-moving inventory because brands typically offer zero credit and demand security deposits. And it's a crippling operational reality that suppresses growth and erodes margins daily. The supply chain is just as chaotic. Procurement is often a reactive, ad-hoc scramble, leading to unpredictable product availability. When a customer walks in asking for a specific tyre that isn't in stock, it's a direct and immediate loss of sale-a frustratingly common occurrence. - On the other side of the counter, the Indian consumer has gone digital - A 55% year-over-year surge in tyre-related Google searches was seen back in 2020, a trend that has only accelerated This creates a massive disconnect: digital-first customers making informed decisions online, and an analog-first dealer network unable to capture this demand. This is the deep, systemic fragmentation that TyrePlex is engineered to solve. The founders - Puneet, Rupendra, Jiveshwar & Nikhil - are building the fundamental operating system for this entire ecosystem. By providing a full-stack solution-from streamlined, just-in-time procurement that frees up working capital to a Dealer Management System that handles invoicing and CRM-they are re-engineering the value chain. The platform's AI-driven consumer side aggregates demand and funnels high-intent customers directly to these empowered dealers, bridging the digital divide. - The explosive 13x revenue growth since 2022 isn't just a startup success story - It's the story of a big no. of SMEs being equipped, for the first time, with the digital tools they need to survive and thrive in the modern economy And that is something I really admire them for. And I believe there is a serious potential and impact to be achieved with companies solving such real problems for India. Thus, always on the look for more of such stories! ---- I've begun to share my learnings from the world of startups more frequently to gain wider perspective. Thus, if you hold any additions or differences to the thoughts I shared above, do share in the comments. That will help widen my thinking horizons. Thanks! Best, Shiv

219

20 Comments

Can AI livestreamers finally make livestreaming work in India?   For years, livestreaming has been unsolved in India. Despite being time-rich with a social-first internet, livestreaming as ecom format never took off like China. It wasn’t for lack of trying - dozens of players entered but the pieces never quite clicked   There are two key issues 1) Supply side never scaled. High quality hosts with skill to entertain/ sell "live" are incredibly hard. Even when you find them, time ROI doesn’t justify effort. W/o massive concurrent views, even great hosts can’t monetize their time well 2) Demand side never hit critical mass. Watching live video to shop isn’t a habit for most users. Unlike China, where buying from livestreams is normalized (even aspirational), we haven’t built that instinct   It is one of the hardest content formats to crack. It’s not just about entertainment - it’s about holding attention for long stretches, establishing emotional trust, selling well. That’s a high bar.   China, however, cracked the code.   In China, livestreaming isn’t just content - it’s an industry. There’s a whole ecosystem of training schools that turn novice into conversion machines. There’s trust in format, amplified by exclusive SKUs + deep discounts. And now, something magical is unfolding..   AI livestreamers Luo Yonghao, China’s most prominent livestreamer, recently launched his AI avatar on Baidu’s ecom with their foundational model. Results were incredible 13M+ views $7.6M in GMV 6 hours of seamless, emotionally engaging, product rich conversation "LIVE" by AI avatar   It delivered 97k+ character of product storytelling, 8k+ coordinated gestures, even held banter with co-host avatar, complete with sync movement. It mimicked spontaneity, emotional shifts, tonal variety - everything that was once thought to be uniquely human. What’s more interesting: it did better sales than human host’s original debut   Why this matters I believed livestreaming was one content format AI wouldn’t touch. Too human, too spontaneous, too dependent on emotional resonance. That assumption’s been shaken.   AI livestreamers now deliver: 24/7 performance w/o burnout Cost-efficiency (<$1K setup vs a full-fledged studio) Hyper-consistent quality in storytelling, gestures They may not replace top-tier influencers, who thrive on emotional intimacy & narrative originality. But they could easily replace the long tail - those who drive volume, not creativity   Can livestreaming finally work in India? AI livestreamers could solve the supply side issue. With avatars that can shoot 24/7, mimic human emotions, deliver crisp storytelling at very low cost. Could this unlock ecom in catg like food, electronics, impulse-led lifestyle where trust equation is lighter & trial isn’t mandatory? It’s too early to say. But India’s livestreaming moment might not come from human creators It might come from AI avatars - fluent in emotion, optimized for conversion & built to scale where humans couldn’t.

56

9 Comments

Why Series B+ Startups Are Choosing India for GCCs Series B is when the conversation shifts from can we build? → to how fast can we scale? That’s when many founders choose India: - Keychain ($30M Series B) doubled its India team right after its raise. - AtoB ($200M+ raised) opened a Bengaluru R&D hub this year. - Even companies with no India market like Deliveroo, Gojek, Grab built product pods here. Because Series B is about speed. Teams here cut time-to-market by 30–40% when they own delivery end to end. India adds 400k+ AI/ML engineers every year, making that scale possible. And yes, the 50-60% cost gap vs the US only amplifies the advantage. Series B is the inflection point where India becomes a scale engine. #gccs

32

1 Comment