The influence and popularity of IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) is known by everyone. In fact, some of the greatest minds of India have studied at IIT. And now, the alumni of IIT are working as an entrepreneur and, in fact, leading the high-tech startup space in India.
Based on its massive success and its alumni, IIT is truly a dream for numerous students. Today, IIT graduates have taken over almost every work sector, from the world’s famous CEOs and scientists to the quirky interiors. And these success stories have now become an inspiration to a lot of students.
In the past few years, the success of IIT has grown truly massively and that resulted in the involvement of IITians in almost every sector that you can think of! And that’s what we are discussing today. In this article, we have discussed the most successful entrepreneurs who graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT). Let’s get started!
We all are well familiar with the name- Sundar Pichai as the CEO of Google. Mr Pichai has pursued his B.Tech degree from IIT Kharagpur, the top IIT college of India. He completed his degree in metallurgical engineering in the year 1993.
He not only just graduated but in fact, topped his batch. But the interesting part is Sundar Pichai did not pursue metallurgically, he chose the path to become the very first Indian CEO of Google.
Sachin Bansal
Sachin Bansal
The co-founder of a famous E-Commerce platform, Flipkart, Sachin Bansal is also an IIT graduate. He studied at IIT Delhi, in the stream of computer science. Sachin Bansal is considered the leader of the E-commerce revolution. He is also an Indian Software Engineer and Internet entrepreneur.
Vinod Khosla
Vinod Khosla
Vinod Khosla, the famous name listed among the billionaires of Forbes magazine. He is a prominent American engineer and businessman, born in India.
Vinod Khosla is the co-founder of Sun Microsystems. He completed his bachelor’s degree from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi in the Electronic Engineering field.
The founder of one of the largest technology companies in India, Infosys, NR Narayana Murthy pursued his master’s of engineering degree from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur in the year 1996.
He completed his B.Tech from the University of Mysore. NR Narayana Murthy was honoured with India’s highest honour, the Padma Shri in 2000.
Deepinder Goyal
Deepinder Goyal
Deepinder Goyal is the CEO of one of the largest food delivery companies, Zomato. He is an IIT graduate, who studied at IIT Delhi with an M.tech degree in computing and mathematics. And with his dedication and hard work, Deepinder Goyal made Zomato the best food company.
Conclusion
There have been numerous graduates from the most prestigious institutions such as IIT in the biggest startups in India. And in the past years, the IIT graduates have served in almost every field of work and made themselves some of the most successful figures in India.
IIT has truly become the dream of every other student, with the passion of becoming a great individual. And these personalities that we mentioned in this article, have become the inspiration for many. Stay tuned for more such articles!
FAQ
Who are some of the successful entrepreneurs graduated from IIT?
Deepinder Goyal, Bhavish Aggarwal, Prabhkiran Singh, Sundar Pichai, Narayana Murthy, and Sachin Bansal are some of the successful entrepreneurs who graduated from IIT.
Which IIT is best for entrepreneurship?
IIT Delhi tops the list among other IIT colleges which created the most successful startups.
Does IIT teach entrepreneurship?
No, IIT does not provide any specific training on entrepreneurship.
Do you also get goosebumps when you hear the word “IIT”? Do you also see IITians getting special treatment in social circles (among your family, relatives, friends, neighbours, etc)?
Here, I’ll provide additional reasons to back the statement above. IIT is among the most respected educational institutions in India ever. It has had students who have made an immense impression on students all over the world. It is, without doubt, eminent and highly productive.
IIT is the ideal choice for students who want to study engineering. It is famous for producing the top engineers in the world and there are plenty of IIT graduates who chose another path than they had planned to take. They became entrepreneurs and set up their own startups in the marketplace. Although they’re not experts in their sector, they’re making waves. Let’s take a look at 10 successful startups led by IIT-Grads.
OLA is an Indian multinational ride-sharing company offering services that include a vehicle for hire and food delivery. Founded by Bhavish Aggarwal, a Computer Science and Engineering graduate of IIT Bombay in 2008. He began his career with Microsoft, where he worked for two years, filed two patents, and published three papers in international journals. In January 2011, he co-founded Ola Cabs with Ankit Bhati in Bengaluru.
OLA – Successful Startups
Now, OLA has a turnover of $320 million and is valued at $6.2 billion in worth. It has over 6000 employees working and is currently available in 169 cities in India. It has expanded in countries like Australia and New Zealand in 2018 and the UK, it started its Auto Rickshaw service in 2019.
Founded by Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal in 2007, it is one of the most popular e-commerce in India. Both Sachin and Binny are alumni of IIT Delhi. The two wished to offer Indians an online store that was created in India which led to the making of what we all now know as Flipkart.
Flipkart Online Shopping Platform
Flipkart, which initially started as book sales, expanding into other product categories such as electronics, fashion, and lifestyle products. In August 2018, US-based retail chain Walmart acquired a 77% controlling stake in Flipkart for $16 billion, valuing Flipkart at around $20 billion.
Quikr is an Indian online marketplace and classified advertising company, based in Bangalore, India with listings in over 1000 cities in categories such as mobile phones, household goods, cars, real estate, jobs, services, and education. It provides a platform for users to buy or sell goods and services from each other. Other services offered include a missed call service and instant messaging. Quikr was founded by Pranay Chulet and Jiby Thomas in 2008. The CEO of the company Pranay Chulet grew up in Rajasthan and completed his Chemical Engineering from IIT Delhi.
Quikr | Co-Founder | Pranay Chulet
4. Acadboost
Acadboost is started by Kalpit Veerwal, an IIT Bombay student. He has completed his 3rd year of Computer Science Engineering from IIT Bombay and founded AcadBoost Technologies Pvt Ltd in his second year. It is an EdTech startup that aims to provide the correct mentorship to students from experts in various fields of education – ranging from competitive exams like JEE, NEET, CAT, GATE to college.
AcadBoost Online Learning Platform
5. Zomato
After graduating from IIT Delhi, Deepinder Goyal took up work at a company Bain & Co, where he met Pankaj Chaddah, and the duo then started a delivery service Zomato in 2008. Zomato is an Indian multinational restaurant aggregator and food delivery company that provides information, menus, and user reviews of restaurants as well as food delivery options from partner restaurants in select cities. As of 2019, the service is available in 24 countries and in more than 10,000 cities.
Zomato – Online Food Delivery App
Zomato shares made a strong stock market debut on 23rd July 2021, listing at ₹116 apiece on the NSE. Zomato shares surged 53% over the IPO price of ₹76. With the listing, Zomato entered the club of India’s top 100 listed companies with a market capitalization of over ₹90,000 crores. The company’s shares got listed at ₹115 apiece on the BSE.
Khetify is an urban farming venture in New Delhi, India founded by IIT Kharagpur graduates Kaustubh Khare and Saahil Parekh that build farms in urban spaces and enable people to grow chemical-free, fresh food. The aim of the startup is to promote food sustainability to city dwellers.
Khetify Logo
Claiming that 16,000 sq km of rooftop space is being wasted in urban cities, Khetify aims to promote the use of this unutilized space to develop small rooftop farms.
7. InMobi
Founded by Naveen Tewari, an IIT Kanpur graduate. InMobi is an Indian multinational mobile advertising technology company, based in Bangalore. Its mobile-first platform allows brands, developers, and publishers to engage consumers through contextual mobile advertising. In 2008, it was enhanced from SMS-based services to mobile advertising and rebranded as InMobi. It is now competing with giants like Google and Facebook for data-driven mobile advertising. InMobi is one of the top 5 players in the US, China, Southeast Asia, and India. Also, Softbank has invested $200 million in it.
InMobi Logo
8. Housing.com
Housing.com is founded by Rahul Yadav, an IIT Mumbai alumnus. Housing.com is a Mumbai-based real estate search portal that allows customers to search for housing based on geography, number of rooms, and various other filters. Rahul Yadav was featured in the list of Forbes 30 under 30 young Entrepreneurs. He is known as the bad boy of an Indian startup, gaining comparisons from Steve Jobs. And fun fact, he was once fired from a company.
Founded by Sanjay Sethi, an alumnus of IIT Delhi who previously worked in the US in the field of e-commerce marketplace, online payments, and operations. After serving as a key to establishing eBay in India, he started his own company Shopclues, along with Sandeep and Radhika Aggarwal. ShopClues provides unstructured categories of home and kitchen, fashion, electronics, and daily utility items at wholesale rates. In 2019, the company was acquired by Singapore-based Qoo10 in an all-stock deal valued at approximately US$70 million, representing one of the largest valuation meltdowns for an Indian-based startup.
Inspiring words of ShopClues Co-Founder- Radhika Aggarwal
10. Snapdeal
FYI Snapdeal wasn’t an e-commerce company till 2008, but then it was founded by Rohil Bahl and Kunal Bahl, the former has a Wharton degree while the latter has an IIT Delhi, graduation degree under their belt.
Snapdeal Logo
It is now one of the most popular e-commerce websites in India, with over 3,00,000 sellers, over 3 Crore products across 800+ diverse categories from more than 1,25,000 regional, national and international brands and retailers and a reach of 6,000 towns and cities among the country.
Yash Gupta
