There are several huge business tycoons in India, who have made their mark on a global level. Post-independence in India, these massive organizations set their claws on every continent in the world and became one of the multinational conglomerates that rose from nothing and now reached the pinnacle of the business realm. One of the remarkable business families is the Birla Group.
Top Companies like Tata group and Reliance Industries gave the nation a level of recognition on an international platform. These companies started acquiring the domestic business establishments of the countries, where they ventured to do business and also started expanding their business vast.
Aditya Birla Group is a firm that takes corporate responsibility very seriously. Son of Aditya Birla, Kumar Birla makes the revenue of $41 billion in the company, a commodities empire with interests in cement, aluminium, telecom industry, and finance. It also backed the 19th position in Asia’s Richest Families, 2017.
Aditya Birla Group is a massive conglomerate that is engaged in various sectors. Birla Group comes with a great history, Aditya Birla Group is a $50 billion corporation and is on the list of Fortune 500.
It also has a number of achievements which includes the tag as a Global leader in Aluminium Rolling and Carbon Black. Aditya Birla Group ranks second in Telecom sector. It is the leader in Telecom and Cement Industry in India. The company has its struggle to achieve the positions.
The company had stepped into the Cotton industry initially which then expanded rapidly in the 20th Century. The company dealt tremendously in critical sectors like textiles and fibre, aluminium, cement, and chemicals under the leadership of Ghanshyam Das Birla. He was involved in the freedom struggle of India with Gandhiji and showed how eminent business leaders could contribute to the betterment of the nation.
After that, Mr Aditya Vikram Birla achieved this feat in the Liberalization of the Indian Economy in 1991. After him, his very capable son, Kumar Mangalam Birla had taken up the role of leadership in 1995 and the Group’s annual turnover was around $3.3 Billion.
The foundation of Aditya Birla Group was laid back in the year 1857. The founder Shiv Narayan Birla had a very wider idea of the future in mind. After his death, the venture was carried forward by the next generation of the family.
Currently, it has become a multinational conglomerate with an important global existence. It deals in the field of various trades such as metals, chemicals, textiles, agriculture, mining, carbon black, telecommunications, insulators, cement, finance, retail, IT, trading solutions, etc.
There are almost a total of 1,40,000 employees and the company generated a revenue of $46 billion in the fiscal year of 2020, making it the third big company per revenue generation with the runners-up Tata Sons and Reliance India Limited. The business is run majorly in Mumbai, Maharashtra.
Aditya Birla Group – Growth
Aditya Birla’s group turnover in 2020 was around $46 billion. Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Limited (ABFRL) is one of the major wings of the Group and has brought good growth to the conglomerate.
ABFRL Revenue Growth
Aditya Birla Forays into B2b Ecommerce
Aditya Birla Group announced that it will launch a B2B eCommerce platform that will deal with building materials, as per reports dated July 19, 2022. Some of the startups that are recognised as B2B eCommerce startups now are Infra. Market and OfBusiness both of which are included among the unicorn startups of India. With this, Aditya Birla also declared that it would be infusing close to Rs 2000 crore into the platform over the course of the next 5 years.
The building materials and the digital segment, both offers tremendous opportunities for growth, mentioned Aditya Birla Group Chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla.
Aditya Birla has earlier taken numerous such decisions that made it conquer segment after segment in the Indian market. Ultratech Cement, an Aditya Birla subsidiary, is the largest cement producer in India. Besides, it has also forayed into the paint space.
Aditya Birla Group – Acquisitions
Aditya Birla Group is a holding and service provider company with almost more than 72+ manufacturing and services subsidiaries across India, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Australia, China, Egypt, Philippines, and Canada.
Grasim, one of Aditya Birla’s subsidiaries, is the world’s leading producer of fibre, and a manufacturer of rayon-grade pulp, sponge, iron, textiles, cement, and chemicals.
Hindalco is a producer of aluminium and copper, and UltraTech Cement is a producer of portland cement and other products.
Birla NGK Insulators, which is a joint venture with Japan, is the world’s leading producer of insulators.
Idea Cellular Limited is a mobile service provider owned by Indian conglomerate Tata Industries jointly.
The Group also produces IT and software services and operates a number of financial subsidiaries. Birla Sun Life Insurance Co. is the 2nd largest private sector insurance company in India, and Birla Sun Life Asset Management Co. is the 4th largest assets manager.
To sum the growth up, the company claims to be the world’s 8th largest producer of cement and the 4th largest producer of carbon black globally. These operations generate revenues of around $7.6 billion per year.
Some other popular subsidiaries of Aditya Birla Group are:
Aleris Corporation
Columbian Chemicals Company
Novelis Inc
Cement business of L&T
Louis Philippe, Allen Solly, Peter England and more.
Aditya Birla Group – Global Conglomeration
The Global conglomerate, Aditya Birla Group is the 2nd largest venture and is an extraordinary force of more than 140,000 employees belonging to 100 nationalities, it is built on a strong foundation of stakeholder value creation.
It is responsible for business powerhouses in a wide range of sectors. Currently, 50% of Aditya Birla Group’s revenues flow from overseas operations which include 36 countries in Africa, Asia, and North and South America.
Aditya Birla Group – Kumar Mangalam Birla
Kumar Mangalam Birla
Kumar Mangalam Birla inherited the family business in 1995 at the tender age of 28 when his father Aditya Birla died and left his son with a lot of pressure to live up to his father.
Against all the odds, Kumar Mangalam Birla proved everyone wrong and took the company to newer heights. The company grew by 16 times under his leadership. He proves to be an inspiration for all of the aspiring entrepreneurs who works under tremendous pressure and make it a strength.
The complete renovation of the new operations and procedures was done by Kumar Birla. He was determined to evolve everything and bring the company to modernization. He is known to be the Best CEOof Aditya Birla Group of Companies.
The Aditya Birla Group broke all the conventional barriers of business and believes in the duty to facilitate inclusive growth. They have a peculiar set of policies and strategies to retain their employees. The group owns one of the top three telecom companies in India, the nation’s largest cement manufacturer, and one of its top retailers.
FAQs
When was Aditya Birla Group founded?
Aditya Birla Group was founded in 1857 by Seth Shiv Narayan Birla.
How many companies are there under Aditya Birla Group?
Aditya Birla Group subsidiary companies are:
Grasim Industries
Vodafone Idea
Essel Mining & Industries Limited
Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail
Domsjo Fabriker
Hindalco Industries
How many employees are there in Aditya Birla Group?
Aditya Birla Group has around 140,000 employees belonging to 100 different countries.
What is Aditya Birla group turnover?
Aditya Birla’s group turnover was US$46 billion (2020).
Who is the richest Birla?
Kumar Mangalam Birla is the richest Birla with an estimated net worth of US $17.5 billion, as of 2022.
A traveller, a tourist and a first-time backpacker. These three have something in common despite their differences in experience. They all want a peaceful night to stay after having a long walk to someone’s dream place or to a normal visit or a trip. The business of giving people home or a place to stay dates back to AD 707.
The hospitality business is one of the indestructible industries wherein famous chains have generations of families leading, in particular, the empire built by people through hospitality. Hotels are the face of this industry. There are buildings that provide people with a place to stay with the utmost comfort. They make people feel cosy in corners not owned by them, yet have rights over them.
Thehotel industry was once owned by the owners with no regulatory bodies on the top of their heads. They had their own business model. But the new generation turned the system into a marketplace that involved filters of the various layers. The whole system was immediately converted into a well-oiled machine. A new system that sided with the huge Indian population.
This huge system turnover was brought by a 22-year-old Indian Boy named Ritesh Agarwal.
The Tourism and Hotel Industry in India is one of the main drivers of growth among the services sector of the country. The tourism industry in India has significant potential as it has rich & diverse culture, historical heritage, a vast range of ecology, and flora and fauna. Indian is known for its geographical diversity, attractive beaches throughout the coastline, 27 world heritage sites, 10 biogeographic zones, 80 national parks and more than 441 sanctuaries.
According to reports, over 39 million jobs were created in the tourism sector which equates to over 8% of the total employment in India. By 2029, the country’s tourism sector is expected to grow 6.7% to reach $488 billion, which will account for 9.2% of the country total economy. The industry has slowed down due to the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, as the country had many lockdowns and restrictions on travel.
As per the Federation of Hotel & Restaurant Association of India (FHRAI), the Indian hotel industry had a loss of approximately $17.82 billion in revenue due to the ongoing pandemic. Despite taking a hit, the industry is looking to come back up with the help of schemes and opportunities provided by the government. The Indian Government is providing free loans to the MSMEs to help them deal with the crisis and revive the tourism sector.
It is also planning to tap into a staycation, which is an emerging trend where people stay at luxurious hotels to revive themselves of stress in a peaceful getaway. With many upcoming developments, the international tourist arrivals are expected to reach 30.5 billion and generate revenue of over $59 billion by 2028. OYO and Airbnb have in many ways helped the industry grow especially in 2020 and 2021, as domestic tourists are expected to drive the growth post-pandemic.
OYO Vs Airbnb – Experience in Industry
Ritesh Agarwal, Founder & CEO of OYO Rooms
When it comes to trust, experienced companies are trusted more.
Ritesh Agarwal, the founder of OYO, formed the most famous chain of leased and franchised hotel chains. We Indians often refer to it as a place to look for the best deals for hotels, The Oyo Rooms. Oyo Rooms started 7 years ago with a bunch of hotels. The company has now expanded globally with thousands of hotels and vacation homes. Oyo Rooms was started in the year 2013.
Ritesh is the second youngest self-made billionaire in the world.
Airbnb’s Founders
Airbnb was conceived years ago by two roommates who rented out an air mattress in their living room. This turned their whole apartment into a bed and breakfast. This was done to sustain the high-priced living in San Francisco. This gave the company its name Airbedandbreakfast. Airbnb was started in 2008.
So the winner here is, Airbnb, which has a lot of experience.
Both the companies share a common goal, i.e. to provide accommodations, a safe place and comfortable corners to people. Yet both the companies have a very different working business model.
Oyo is often believed to be India’s answer to Airbnb. This article will take you through the different business models and things that are uncommon between the two companies.
OYO Vs Airbnb – Front-end
OYO Rooms
OYO, as people know, is a website where one can go through various filters and find a hotel. But this is the front-end of how the Oyo company is. Oyo is a marketplace for only hotels.
Airbnb
However, Airbnb is a marketplace that helps a traveller find an abode of his type. It can be for lodging, primarily homestays and homestays. It also lets the provider of the property fix a price. This helps both sides as well as Airbnb. The company has recently started offering experiences too.
This shows a more varied and real-world applied concept. So, Airbnb has a better front-end.
OYO Vs Airbnb – Places to Stay
OYO Online Booking
Oyo used to get hotels and book a majority of the rooms for a definite time. It then standardizes the room according to the Oyo standards. Later, list the hotels on its website with huge and heavy discounts. The whole business model used to work by acquiring clusters of hotels for a definite time. Standardizing them and making them proper before listing.
Airbnb Online Booking
Airbnb is based on the sharing economy. It makes owners share the property or rooms they own with travellers who in turn share money with the owners. It is believed to be the most successful business that works on sharing economy. A two-faced system that works for the public.
OYO Vs Airbnb – Stay Duration
Oyo works on hotel stays, so an individual can stay there for a good amount of time. Oyo rooms have no particular rule about leaving a room after a set date. The whole system is similar to how one can stay in a hotel. But in Airbnb, there is a 90-day rule. This rule was introduced in 2017. This rule is only for areas in London. The listings in that area cannot be occupied for more than 90 days.
This makes Airbnb not suitable for very long.
Oyo had 5,855 hotels in its network in the year 2016 with an inventory of over 68 thousand rooms. If compared to today it has a portfolio of more than 35 thousand hotels and 125 thousand vacation homes. It has over 1.2 million rooms across 80 countries and 800 cities.
But, the founder and CEO of Oyo – Ritesh Agarwal made an announcement in the year 2017 that the company had evolved its Oyo business model to 100% franchise, managing, or operating. He also mentioned that his company would no longer go for hotel aggregation and will shift towards becoming a proper full-scale hospitality company. The CEO stated that this change in business model will reduce operational costs. Hence, improve service.
Oyo changed its business model to the Franchise model in the year 2017. The company earlier used to take up some rooms on lease and would sell them to customers. This model involves partnering with many hotels and asking them to operate as a franchise. Then selling their rooms to all the customers at competitive prices.
Airbnb, known for not owning any of the properties. Yet known for having a business that does work on providing shelter. All the company does is providing a platform. A platform on which all the people can rent out properties they own or spare rooms to guests. The property prices are set by the owner themselves. But the company intervenes when it comes to the collection of money.
The Business model of Airbnb is a multi-sided marketplace that connects all the travellers with the host and experience providers. The company makes money from the fees that come from bookings from stays and experiences. Airbnb’s model is exponential when it comes to growth.
Airbnb has a better business model in terms of customer comfort and reach.
Airbnb’s business model is quite simple yet very innovative which often dubs it as the world’s fastest-growing travel site.
Oyo charges around 22% of commissions. This has to be paid every month by the hotels’ owners. However, commissions may vary as per the services and features offered. Oyo also charges a commission out of the room reservation fee according to their services chosen.
Airbnb makes all the money through commissions. It charges a 3% commission on every booking from hosts and between 6 – 12% from guests. Unlike Oyo, Airbnb takes reviews and feedback from both ends. Be it the host or the guest, this makes it a proper marketplace.
Airbnb seems to have an upper hand at everything, making it a proper place to visit before actually vising one.
OYO Vs Airbnb – Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a tool that lets a company store customer and prospect contact information. It also helps the company identify sales opportunities, record service issues, and manage marketing campaigns. Depending on what type of CRM a company has, they can get basic information about their prospective customer and interact with them. CRM helps the company in better analyzing and understanding their customers, which will help them offer better and more efficient customer service. Airbnb and OYO have very different CRM strategies.
CRM of OYO
The CRM that OYO uses is Blueshifts Programmatic CRM, which has helped the company to become a leader in 1:1 customer engagement across all marketing channels. With Blueshift’s precise recommendations and targeted triggers, OYO has been able to achieve 5X higher bookings from email and mobile channels. The company also has a mobile-first approach which has helped it to expand in over 500 cities across ten countries.
CRM of Airbnb
The CRM that Airbnb uses is Twilio, which helps connect with hosts. How it works is, when a traveller makes a reservation through Airbnb, the host has 32 hours to respond to a booking request and this is possible because of its CRM. There is systematic mobile communication between hosts and travellers using a text message. The host can also decide whether they want to accept or deny the customer. The company also uses Hootsuite social media management, which helps them monitor their follower’s growth and social CRM. The system also helps the company to find certain keywords that can eventually be used in campaigns.
OYO Vs Airbnb – Marketing Strategy
OYO – Marketing Strategy
Oyo is known to use the 360-degree marketing method as it implies having a presence on all forms of digital and traditional media. They also have their unique room strategy which helps in attracting more customers with lower room prices in comparison to the base price of the hotel. Besides that OYO has made many successful multimedia marketing campaigns such as #AurKyaChahiye. It also shares location-based posts, promotional posts, which helps people to browse destinations to travel, check for new offers & discounts and encourage them to book OYO.
Airbnb – Marketing Strategy
Airbnb on the other hand uses the marketing approach to building and maintaining a strong community among its users. It also mainly targets long term loyalty from both the guests and hosts. The main marketing strategy of the company is to take your business in front of your potential guest and turn them into bookers. The customers who previously enjoyed their stay with Airbnb places are sent an email encouraging them to list their own property. Airbnb India aims to make its guests feel welcome, its app did the same, as it has a unified interface on Android and iOS platforms.
OYO Vs Airbnb – Social Media
OYO on Social Media
Over the years the company has leveraged the power of social media as it has been able to retain its ranking and stay ahead of OYO competitors in the market. OYO currently has over 169k followers on Instagram and 65.4k followers on Twitter, with actor Sonu Sood as its current brand ambassador. On all the social media platforms, the company promotes itself as being a brand that offers two types of services which are promoting tourist spaces and a safe space to spend time with your loved ones in your own city. OYO also uploads many ad campaigns like ‘Fir Badhega India’ and ‘Sanitised Stays’ that helps in engaging with their customers especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Airbnb on Social Media
Airbnb has a different approach to social media marketing as it heavily relies on awareness generating strategy. The company also uses travel influencers to further promote the platform as it does its social media relies on user-generated content (UGC). So far the company has over 4.9 million followers on Instagram and 733k followers on Twitter. It also has over 6.3 million photos using #airbnb on Instagram which shows us how widespread the company is. Airbnb also heavily invests in video marketing as a part of telling its brand story, it currently has more than 500 videos generating over 100 million views on YouTube.
Conclusion
In a nutshell, Airbnb and Oyo share the same kind of services, i.e. hospitality service. Moreover, Airbnb is a website for people to list, find and rent lodging whereas Oyo is a chain of budget and premium rooms partnering with different hotels. Oyo is all about providing a customer experience within a stipulated budget range while Airbnb doesn’t control the customer experience as such.
FAQs
What is the difference between Airbnb and Oyo?
OYO has more hotel rooms whereas Airbnb has more residential plots. In Airbnb, the apartment may have been misinterpreted, not so in the case of OYO as an audit is done every week.
Are OYO Rooms similar to Airbnb?
OYO’s business model is kind of similar to that of Airbnb, i.e. they are an online aggregator of budget hotels. Bookings for these rooms would be made via the website and the mobile app of OYO Rooms. However, the main focus is always is the quality of service provided.
How to give your property to OYO Rooms?
For OYO Rooms registration, you can write an email to partner@oyorooms.com or give a call to this number +91 70530 70530.
Is OYO successful?
OYO Rooms has been one of the most successful startups in India being the country’s largest budget hotel chain. It focuses on standardizing the hotels in the non-branded hospitality sector.
Is Airbnb better than Oyo?
OYO is better in terms of privacy and security. OYO assures quality service while Airbnb doesn’t guarantee anything from their end.
Indians are fixated on the startup culture. People are choosing entrepreneurship over mundane, 9-to-5 jobs. However, not everyone succeeds as an entrepreneur. A survey revealed that approximately 11% of the Indians are engaged in ‘early-stage entrepreneurial activities’. And only 5% of these early-stage entrepreneurs actually went on to establish their startup.
But keeping these statistics aside, some Indian startups have gone on to dominate their target segments. This post is dedicated to some of the most successful entrepreneurs from India whose ventures have revolutionized the daily life of millions, if not billions, across the globe. The path to name and fame wasn’t easy for them; it involved several trials and tribulations.
Ritesh Agarwal founded OYO rooms in 2015. He was the recipient of the TiE – Lumis Entrepreneurial Excellence Award (2014), became the first Asian to win ’20 under 20’ Thiel Fellowship (2013), was named one of the top 50 entrepreneurs by TATA First Dot Awards (2013) and became the world’s youngest CEO at the age of 17. Ritesh Agarwal, an Orissa boy coming from a business-oriented family, went to Kota to become an engineer.
But unlike other JEE aspirants, his passion caught hold of him and he did not take JEE preparation seriously. Instead, he wrote a book called ‘Indian Engineering Colleges: A Complete Encyclopedia of Top 100 Colleges’; the book became immensely popular on Flipkart.
He was just 16 when he was selected for the Asian Science Camp held at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR). With a penchant for traveling and having lived in tons of hotels, Ritesh observed a common problem at the places he stayed – the exorbitant price of the hotel room was not proportional to the facilities provided. He felt that majority of the hotels in India couldn’t satisfy the basic needs of a traveler on a budget.
Thus, he started Oravel Stays,his first venture in 2012. He improvised his business model and re-launched Oravel as ‘OYO’ which is short for ‘ON YOUR OWN’. Ritesh Agarwal became one of the most revered Indian entrepreneurs through OYO. At the age of 26 he became a billionaire.
Net worth of Ritesh Agarwal as of now is $2 billion. He became the second youngest billionaire after Kylie Jenner in the world.
An epitome of courage and wisdom, Shradha Sharma was at the top of her career while working with famous news media houses such as Times of India and CNBC (Mumbai). During her stint with these organizations, she noticed that no one was willing to promote and air the stories of entrepreneurs—both successful and not-so-successful. She figured out that there are millions of stories storming around but no medium to share them with the masses. Shradha decided to create YourStory, an online portal that hosts entrepreneurial stories and other share-worthy content.
YourStory was started in 2008 and has allowed over 70,000 stories to come to the fore. Shradha Sharma leads a team of 100+ people who work together to offer content in 11 Indian languages. YourStory’s aim is to provide a voice to the roller coaster of emotions that an entrepreneur goes through. Shradha Sharma is the recipient of the L’Oreal Paris Femina Award and has been included in the list of Worlds’ Top 500 LinkedIn Influencers. She is one of the most followed female entrepreneurs in India. Her channel has earned more than 26 million individual views.She is one of the most followed female entrepreneurs in India.Her net worth is of $1.3 billion.
Bhavish Aggarwal, an IIT Bombay alumnus, co-founded the most popular cab aggregator in India – Ola Cabs – with Ankit Bhati. He is the recipient of the Billionth award in 2013, Best startup of the year by IAMAL, and was listed in Forbes30 under 30 list. Bhavish revolutionized the idea of cab-hailing in India by making use of smartphones. Ola Cabs was different from the other cab services at that time in the sense that it leveraged smartphones and GPS technology; thus, it became easy for people to book cabs from anywhere, at any time. Bhavish Aggarwal left a well-paying job at Microsoft to work on Ola Cabs. No one supported his idea but it was his strong will, determination, and eagerness to take risks in life that led him to the pinnacle of success. Bhavish Aggarwal is counted amongst the most successful Indian entrepreneurs. According to Time magazine Bhavish Aggarwal is one of the 100 Most Influential People this year. His Net worth is $ 500 million.
Vijay Shekhar Sharma is the founder of Paytm, the cornerstone of digitized payments in India. Vijay is from Aligarh, India. A graduate of the Delhi College of Engineering, Vijay worked on several projects and at a small startup before taking the entrepreneurial plunge. He put in USD 2 million to get One97 up and running. One97 is the parent company of Paytm. The payments platform gave Indians access to a mobile wallet, the facility of making payments using QR codes, simplified bill payments, and a lot more. These features made Paytm wildly popular. In this manner, Vijay Shekhar Sharma became an inspiration to budding entrepreneurs all over the globe. He Won the Best Serial Entrepreneur Award at the Rural and Urban Development Summit and Awards 2022 presented by the Minister of State for Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Government of India.
Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah, founders of Zomato
Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah revolutionized the food delivery segment in India through its first foodtech unicorn Zomato. The duo are IIT Delhi graduates. Zomato started out as ‘Foodiebay’ and was first launched in Delhi. It was later extended to Mumbai and Kolkata. Now, there is not a single place in India where Zomato doesn’t render its services. Zomato’s mobile app is its USP; the app has an excellent user interface that lets you order food from the restaurant/eatery of your choice and make hassle-free payments. In Jan 2020, Zomato acquired one of its competitors- Uber Eats in India for a valuation of $300 million. In July 2022, Zomato went public with its stock listing at a premium of 53% over its issue price and it commanded a market cap of Rs 43,000 cr as of Mar 2023. In 2018, Prakash Chaddah left Zomato to venture into different fields. Net worth of Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal is estimated to be Rs 2,000 cr as of Mar 2023.
Kunal Shah graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy from Wilson College, Mumbai, and briefly pursued an MBA from Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies before dropping out. Shah’s first startup was a company named Paisaback, which provided cash-back promotions for organized retailers. Kunal Shah and Sandeep Tandon are the founders of one of India’s most innovative business models – Freecharge. CRED is Shah’s second venture after he sold Freecharge to Snapdeal in 2015 for $400 million. He is definitely one of the most famous entrepreneurs in India.
Binny Bansal and Sachin Bansal, founders of Flipkart
Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal are the founders of Flipkart. The e-commerce segment in India underwent a drastic change courtesy of Flipkart. Sachin and Binny found discrepancies while searching for products on Amazon’s online store. The duo realized that the USP of their e-commerce initiative would be the timely delivery of products complemented by a simplistic user interface that leveraged the latest technology. Both the founders have now stepped down from their positions in Flipkart after it was acquired by Walmart in 2018. Flipkart is still giving a tough fight to all the e-commerce platforms out there and continues to win the hearts of Indians. India Today ranked them 50 Most powerful people of 2017 list.
Deep Kalra is the founder of MakeMyTrip. The credit for the introduction of online train bookings in India goes to Deep Kalra. A graduate of St. Stephen’s College with an MBA degree from IIM Ahmedabad, Deep worked for GE Capital and ABN AMRO bank. But the office culture and 9-5 job couldn’t captivate him enough. With a $2 million investment from eVentures and his co-founders, Deep Kalra founded MakeMyTrip, (earlier known as ‘India Ahoy’) in the year 2000. The company was listed on NASDAQ in August 2010. After IRCTC joined the race, Deep diversified MakeMyTrip by introducing hotel bookings. MakeMyTrip has mergers with MyGola, TrulyMadly, and the ITC group, to name a few. Deep Kalra is the chairperson of the NASSCOM Internet Working Group, a member of the Executive Council of NASSCOM, and is part of CII’s tourism sub-committee. He was ranked no 1 in a list of most powerful digital influencers in India by KPMG in 2011. His net worth is $ 136 million.
BYJU’S has helped thousands of students who struggle with subjects such as mathematics and science crack some of the hardest entrance exams like the JEE, NEET, and UPSC, CAT, IAS, and international examinations such as GRE and GMAT. BYJU’S has dominated the online education vertical for quite some time now. Byju Raveendran is the founder of BYJU’S. He is an engineer who worked in a shipping firm and accidentally stepped into the field of teaching when he assisted his friends with their CAT exam. Raveendran’s friends cleared the exam with flying colors and this motivated him to take up teaching on a full-time basis. Byju Raveendran started BYJU’s with an initial investment of just INR 2 lakhs. The startup’s valuation has recently crossed $22 billion as of March 2022, and the company have over 115 million registered students.In January 2022, the company joined Simplilearn, Unacademy, upGrad, PrepInsta Prime and Vedantu to become one of the founding members of IAMAI’s India EdTech Consortium.
In March 2022, the company signed a contract with Qatar Investment Authority to establish a new edtech company and a R&D center in Doha.
The concept of bringing the grocery store to one’s doorstep has done wonders across the globe. With it, the problem of waiting in long queues at groceries has now gone for a toss. Indians too now prefer the online route for grocery shopping. And who has dominated this segment? BigBasket. Hari Menon is the founder of BigBasket. With sales of over INR 150 crores per month, BigBasket has cemented its place as one of the big shots in the Indian e-commerce domain. It is operational in Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi-NCR, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune, Ahmedabad, and Kolkata at present. In 2021 Tata Digital buys 64% stake in BigBasket His company received a lot of awards such as Consumer Internet Company of the Year by VC Circle Awards 2016, Best Online Grocer at Coca Cola Golden Spoon Awards 2016, Best retail and e-commerce app of the year at AWS Mobility Awards 2017, etc.
Albinder Dhindsa wanted to provide the services of a grocery, bakery, and general store through a consolidated platform. His dream took the form of Grofers, an Indian online grocery service. Albinder Dhindsa and Saurabh Kumar founded Grofers. The duo worked hard to infuse new ideas into the online delivery system in India. Grofers is worth around $650 million today. The company has shifted from a B2B to a B2C business model. Grofers was named one of the Top 10 startups in Delhi and Gurgaon in 2014. Grofers had attained unicorn status or $1 billion in valuation, after raising over $120 million from food aggregator Zomato Ltd. On December 13, 2021, Grofers changed its brand name to Blinkit. As of 2021 Albinder holds 5-10% stake in the company.
Sanjiv Bajaj is known as the Chairman and Managing Director of Bajaj Finserv. Born into a family of the Bajajs, a business house started by Jamnalal Bajaj, who led the Bajaj Group to glory, Sanjiv had the zeal to raise their family business to amazing highs. Sanjiv is the son of Rahul Bajaj and great-grandson of Jamnalal Bajaj. After completing his Btech. in Mechanical engineering, followed by a Masters in manufacturing systems from the University of Warwick and an MBA from Harvard Business school, Sanjiv started his career with Bajaj Auto in 1994.
He had been a promising businessman from the very first, which helped him scale numerous prestigious designations within the organization. He had brought the American-style supply chain management to Bajaj Auto. Bajaj is currently serving as a non-executive director of Bajaj Auto.
Along with Bajaj Auto, Sanjiv also contributed to Bajaj Finserv, Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance, Bajaj Allianz General Insurance, Bajaj Finance for which he was appointed as the Chairman and Vice-Chairman. Sanjiv even led Bajaj Allianz General Insurance to emerge as the 2nd most profitable insurance company in India. Being an accomplished entrepreneur, Bajaj won a range of awards for the same, like the Entrepreneur of the Year” Award 2015-16 from Bombay Management Association, Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2017, Economic Times Awards for Business Leader of the Year 2018. Therefore, Sanjiv Bajaj can be regarded as one of the greatest entrepreneurs and business leaders that India has seen to date. Sanjiv Bajaj has a revenue of over ₹ 36,692 crore ($ 4.4 billion) and profit of over ₹ 2,866 crore ($ 348 million) for H1 FY2022-23.
PolicyBazaar has certainly grown to become one of the best insurance aggregators and a global technology company but it might not have secured the illustrious position that it now stands on if it was not for the Chief Executive Officer and Cofounder of the company, Yashish Dahiya. Dahiya was a student of IIT Delhi, from where he did his Bachelors in Engineering. He then went on to complete a Post Graduate Diploma in Management from IIM Ahmedabad, which was followed by an MBA from INSEAD in 2001.
Yashish was the MD of the pan-European travel distributor, ebookers.com, and had previous experience of working as a strategy consultant of Bain & Co. in their London office before he founded PolicyBazaar in 2008. Yashish Dahiya had a major contribution to PolicyBazaar since he founded the company along with Alok Bansal and Avaneesh Nirjar in 2008, which has successfully become a key influencer in consumer decisions around insurance now. Furthermore, the platform hosts over 100 million visitors a year on average on its platform.
Dahiya was honored with the EY Entrepreneur of The Year (EOY) 2019 award in the Financial Services category and more for all that he had done for PolicyBazaar. Yashish Dahiya is also an extraordinary sportsperson along with a celebrated entrepreneur. He is the Indian masters swimming champion and has taken part in several world masters swimming championships representing India. Furthermore, Dahiya also boasts of having the 3rd fastest half ironman timing and the 5th fastest Ironman timings amongst Indians across all age groups along with having the fastest timings in his age group. In June 2021, Policybazaar obtained the insurance broking license from IRADA and announced that it would set up 100 offline outlets across India. The company also surrendered its web aggregator license. PB Fintech Ltd, the parent company of Policybazaar, opened its initial public offering (IPO) and raised ₹5,625 crore(US$700 million).Shares of PB Fintech Ltd began trading on National Stock Exchange and Bombay Stock Exchange in November 2021.
It seems nothing less than a dream when we talk about a fan of Manchester United, Mumbai Indians, and the Indian cricket team, who founded a company named Dream11 for the love of sports that he nurtures. Yes, it happened with Harsh Jain, who with his founding partner, Bhavit Sheth, founded Dream11 and Dream Sports, India’s no. 1 sports fantasy platform for sporting enthusiasts. That allows users to play fantasy cricket, hockey, football, kabaddi, handball, basketball, volleyball, rugby,futsal, American football,and baseball.
Harsh was the son of Anand Jain, an Indian business magnate previously associated with Mukesh Ambani. He was born in Mumbai, India, and was an engineering student at the University of Pennsylvania, after which he went for an MBA from Columbia Business School. Harsh began his career with Microsoft from where he completed a 2 months Summer Internship from June 2006 to August of the same year after which he went to work in Jai Corp Limited as a Marketing Manager. His father, Anand Jain was then the Chairman of the company. Jain worked at Jai for 13 months, when in 2008 he decided to establish Dream11.
Harsh is currently serving as a Culture Enforcement Officer (CEO) & Co-Founder of Dream Sports (Dream11, FanCode, DreamX, and more) and one of the leading entrepreneurs of India. Harsh is a major inspiration for the budding entrepreneurs of the country for sure. In April 2019, Dream11 became the first Indian Fantasy sportcompany to become a unicorn.In November 2021 Dream11 was valued at $8 billion.In December 2022, Dream11 had 160 million active users in India.
Supam Maheshwari is better known as the CEO and Co-Founder of Firstcry, India’s online marketplace for baby products. Supam was a postgraduate student from IIM Ahmedabad and started Brainvisa, as his first company with Amitava Saha, back in March 2000. The Pune-based company witnessed a steady growth before it was acquired by the US-based group, Indecomm Global in 2007.
Supam served as the Co-founder and the CEO of Brainvisa till December 2009 in order to found another company. He founded FirstCry.com in August 2010 along with Amitava Saha, Prashant Jadhav, and Sanket Hattimattur.
The idea of establishing an eCommerce company focused on baby care products was rooted deep in his personal experience as a first-time parent, who faced numerous challenges in sourcing the best product for his baby. Firstcry has grown to be a market leader when it comes to baby products online. The company currently boasts of over 380 stores across India.
His net worth could be estimated at 190 million USD.The baby products marketplace’s valuation stands at 1.9 billion USD after an equity funding round of 13 million USD with pi Ventures As of 2021.
FirstCry had increased its IPO size from around $700 Mn to $1 Bn, aiming at a valuation of around $6-7 BnIN Aug 2022
Richa Kar is the face of one of India’s largest online lingerie stores, Zivame. Richa was born in a conventional family in Jamshedpur. Kar was an engineering student, who completed her graduation from BITS Pilani and eventually went for a corporate job in Bangalore. Richa eventually left her job in order to pursue an MBA, after which she joined Spencers Retail and then SAP Retail.
Her exposure in the retail industry helped her develop knowledge and practical skills beneficial for the retail industry. While working with SAP, Richa was intrigued about Victoria’s Secret, America’s largest retail company for women’s lingerie, and the success it enjoys. Soon after, she realized that India hasn’t got any such websites empowering women to shop for their own lingerie online smoothly and fearlessly.
Though Richa had a considerable experience of around 8 years by then in the retail industry, her parents didn’t get the concept of selling lingerie and weren’t sure how they would speak of her daughter, who is involved in such a profession to others. Therefore, she gravely lacked any support from her family but with her strong will and zeal to found a startup, she ultimately managed to establish Zivame with Kapil Karekar in 2011. Zivame has now become an online leader in its segment, offering more than 5,000 styles, 50 brands, and 100 sizes. Zivame products come at affordable prices with high quality.
The company that initially started with Rs 35 lakhs, which Richa borrowed from her friends, is currently one of the best women’s lingerie marketplace in India. Zivame has received $69 million in funding at a valuation of $98.6M and her net worth is Rs 749 crores, according to reports. The company currently holds about 26% of the market share of the women’s online lingerie market in India, which stood at Rs 430 crore in FY19.
Ashish Hemrajani is an Indian entrepreneur, popularly identified as the Co-founder and CEO of Bigtree Entertainment Pvt. Ltd., the parent company of India’s biggest online entertainment ticketing platform BookMyShow. Ashish Hemrajani completed his MBA with Marketing as his specialization from Sydenham University in 1997.
As soon as he completed his MBA, he went to work with J. Water Thompson. However, after working in the client management segment of the firm for 2 years, Ashish left the company in order to start his new venture with Bigtree Entertainment and BookMyShow in 1999.
BookMyShow still stands as a leading online ticketing solution for Indians. Under the leadership of Ashish, the company further expanded to New Zealand, UAE, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka. BookMyShow also had a feature to buy tickets of sports matches like IPL, ISL, etc. They now have employ over 400 people across offices in Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore. Ashish Hemrajani Net worth is estimated at Rs.3000 Crore as of 2021.
Shiv Nadar is a founding member of HCL Technologies and a prominent Indian entrepreneur, billionaire industrialist, and the recipient of India’s 3rd highest civilian award, Padma Bhushan. Shiv Nadar is the 3rd richest person of India, as of September 2021 with a net worth of around US$29.3 billion. Nadar goes by the nickname “Magus” (meaning: wizard in Old Persian), which he received from his friends.
Nadar was educated in the St. Joseph Boys Higher Secondary School, Trichy, and received his pre-university degree from the American College, Madurai. He again pursued Electrical and Electronics Engineering from the PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore, and received his Bachelor’s in engineering.
Walchand Group’s Cooper Engineering Ltd., Pune, which he joined in 1967, marked the start of Nadar’s career. However, he soon left his job role and founded Microcomp, a company that focused on selling teledigital calculators in the Indian market. Soon after that, he founded HCL in 1976 in collaboration with several friends and colleagues and with an investment of Rs 187,000.
The company made revolutionary advancements in the Indian IT landscape and is still regarded as one of the best among the homegrown IT companies whereas Shiv Nadar stands tall and towering as one of the top entrepreneurs of India.
The founder and CEO of the cyber security company, TAC Security, Trishneet Arora, was named in Forbes 30 Under 30 2018 Asia list and also in Under 40 List of India’s Brightest Business Minds 2019 by Fortune magazine, in 2020 Entrepreneur of the Year in Service Business-Security, 2021 Fortune India 40 Under 40 and 2022 he was Awarded as global leader of tomorrow.
Arora failed in the 8th standard but his relentless love for computers and coding drove him through the path of glory to become a professional ethical hacker and a renowned cybersecurity expert. Arora dropped out of school but continued with his studies along with fixing computers and cleaning up software.
Trishneet was only 19 when he founded his own company, TAC Security Solutions in 2013 and he has never looked back since then. The cybersecurity company, TAC Security offers protection to numerous corporations like Reliance Industries, CBI, Gujarat Police, and Punjab Police and others, against network vulnerabilities and data theft. Trishneet Arora’s net worth is $5 million as of now.
The founder of Reliance Industries, Dhirajlal Hirachand Ambani, or Dhirubhai Ambani, as he is popularly known, was a successful entrepreneur and business tycoon, who took Reliance public in 1977. Dhirubhai has been recognized with numerous awards and accolades heaped on during his lifetime and was also awarded the prestigious Padma Vibhushan, India’s second-highest civilian honor after he died in the year 2002.
Dhirubhai was a student of the Bahadur Khanji school. After the completion of his studies, he left for the Port of Aden, Yemen, to work for A. Besse and Co., for which he was later involved in selling shell and Burmah oil products. However, he left Aden and came back to his motherland to start his own company. Initially starting with “Majin” in partnership with Champaklal Damani, Dhirubhai eventually set up Reliance Commercial Corporation in 1966, which was later rechristened as Reliance Industries in May 1973.
Also, it was Dhirubhai who launched the popular textile brand ‘Vimal’. Dhirubhai died when he was 69 and was worth around $2.9 bn upon his death.
Lakshmi Niwas Mittal is the Executive Chairman and CEO of the largest steel-making company in the world, ArcelorMittal, and an Indian steel magnate based in the United Kingdom. Besides, Mittal also serves as the Chairman of Aperam, a stainless steel manufacturer, which spun out of ArcelorMittal. Mittal owns around 38% stakes in his company along with another 20% stakes in the EFL Championship football club, Queens Park Rangers.
Lakshmi Mittal has also been appointed as a member of the board of directors of Goldman Sachs since 2008. Mittal was recognized with titles, honors, and awards of various kinds from time to time including “the third-richest person in the world” as announced by Forbes in 2005. He was also announced as the “Business Person of 2006” by Sunday Times, “Person of the Year” by Financial Times, In 2008 he was awarded the Padma Vibhushan, and more.
Born in a Marwadi family, Lakshmi studied at Shri Daulatram Nopany Vidyalaya in Calcutta and graduated from the University of Calcutta affiliated St Xavier’s College with a B.Com degree in the first class. Mittal first chose the business way by founding the steel factory PT Ispat Indo. He went to purchase numerous companies from abroad, like the Irish Steel plant, starting from the state-owned steelworks in Trinidad and Tobago, all of which were successful initiatives.
Mittal ultimately succeeded to come out triumphant in a hostile takeover bid of Arcelor and later renamed it to ArcelorMittal, which is currently responsible for bringing a lion’s share of revenues for Mittal. As of 2022, he was ranked as the 15th richest man in India by Forbes with a net-worth of US$17.8 billion.
Informally known as the Czar of the IT industry of India, Azim Premji is the face of Wipro. Premji is known as an entrepreneur, investor, engineer, business tycoon, and philanthropist who was responsible for cementing the position of Wipro as one of the most prestigious of the Indian multinational corporations through more than four decades of growth and diversification.
Azim Premji is the founding Chairman and a non-executive member of the board of the company and has been twice listed by Time Magazine among the 100 Most Influential people.
Premji went for a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University but he had to come back to take charge of Wipro, which was then termed as Western Indian Vegetable Products. He expanded the business to a large scale and later on discovered the vacuum that IBM left on its expulsion from India. He filled the gap by developing the IT wing of Wipro.
Premji is one of the most successful Indian entrepreneurs whose total wealth was estimated $9.3billion and $25 billion respectively as of feb 2023. Moreover, he is also recognized for his philanthropic nature. He makes most of his donations to the Azim Premji Foundation and had agreed to give away half his wealth by signing the Giving Pledge in 2013. In 2019, he dropped from the 2nd position in the Forbes India Rich list to 17th position after giving away a huge amount to charity.
He topped the EdelGive Hurun India Philanthropy List for 2020
We all have heard about Dunzo but do you know who founded it? The 24/7 delivery app was founded in July 2014 by Kabeer Biswas, Ankur Agarwal, Dalvir Suri, and Mukund Jha. Kabeer Biswas is the CEO and Co-founder of Dunzo, who completed his B.E from the University of Mumbai and followed it with an MBA from Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS).
He started his career with Bharti Airtel, Videocon Telecommunications, and then went on to found Dunzo. Dunzo currently provides its delivery services in eight Indian cities including Bangalore, Delhi, Gurgaon, Pune, Chennai, Jaipur, Mumbai and Hyderabad.
In August 2021, Dunzo launched a new service, Dunzo Daily, to deliver essentials and household items in 19 minutes. January 2022, Reliance Retail led a US$240 million funding round along with Dunzo’s existing investors Lightbox, Lightrock, 3L Capital and Alteria Capital. Reliance Retail invested US$200 million for a 25.8% stake in Dunzo.
Ratan Tata is the former Chairman of Tata Sons and Tata Group and is still the head of the charitable trusts of the company. A scion of the Tata family, Ratan Tata was the son of Naval Tata and later adopted by Jamsetji Tata.
He is well-known as an Indian industrialist, philanthropist, and one of the few business tycoons who are synonymous with success. Tata was the recipient of two of the highest Indian civilian awards – Padma Bhushan and Padma Vibhushan.
Ratan Tata was a student of the Cornell University of Architecture and completed his Advanced Management Program from the Harvard Business school in 1975. Tata was the apparent successor of J.R.D Tata, who started with the shop floor of Tata Steel and was responsible for expanding the company on a massive scale.
Largely credited with the diversification and growth of Tata, Ratan Tata helped the company acquire numerous businesses and companies including Tetley, Jaguar Land Rover, and more, and scaled the company to unimaginable heights. Ratan Tata is currently featured among the top entrepreneurs of India and an inspirational figure for all the budding entrepreneurs and other individuals.
Nithin Kamath is the Co-founder of the biggest stock-broking company in India, Zerodha, an inspirational entrepreneur, and is famous as one of the self-made billionaires of India. Nithin along with his brother, Nikhil Kamat has also been declared as the richest self-made billionaire in India under 40, according to IIFL Wealth and Hurun India’s 40 & Under Self-Made Rich List 2020 with a combined wealth of Rs 24,000 crores, as assessed in 2020. In year end march 2022 zerodha net profit was 2094.3 crore.
The company has valued itself at $3billion, based on the valuations of employee stock option. Nithin Kamath was a student of Bangalore Institute of Technology but he was never quite inclined to academics. Kamath got into the world of trading at the early age of 17 and eventually, his love for trading grew.
Nithin was successful in trading but also lost quite a lot of his money in the early 2000s. Kamath then returned to a fixed job at a call center, where he worked for 4 years before joining Reliance Money as a franchisee in proprietary trading and advisory services. He worked hard and saved his capital to establish his own company Zerodha in 2010 and emerge at the top of his game with Nikhil.
Kiran Mazumdar Shaw is an Indian billionaire entrepreneur distinguished for being the executive chairperson and founder of Biocon Limited and Biocon Biologics Limited. Furthermore, she was also recognized as the former chairperson of the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. Kiran was the recipient of the Othmer Gold Medal for her contributions to the fields of science and chemistry.
Financial Times listed her among the Top 50 women in the business list while Forbes listed her as the 68th most powerful woman in the world. Furthermore, Kiran was also named the EY World Entrepreneur of the Year in 2020.
After completing her graduation from Bangalore University with a bachelor’s degree in Zoology, Kiran went to the fermentation science and brewing at Melbourne University and topped her class emerging as a master brewer in 1975. She struggled to join as a master brewer in India after serving Carlton and United Breweries because the breweries here believed that the job of a master brewer is a “man’s work.”
However, Kiran discovered huge opportunities abroad and joined Biocon Biochemicals Limited, and eventually started Biocon India. In 2015, she joined The Giving Pledge, promising that at least half of her wealth will be dedicated to philanthrop. In 2019, she was listed as the 68th most powerful woman in the world by Forbes. She received Firodia Lifetime Achievement Award 2022 for her contributions to science and technology.
In January 2020 Kiran received the international award and became the fourth Indian citizen to be honored with Australia’s highest civilian award. In year 2023 they start
Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw scholarship for the students who study in the fields of science, technology or mathematics at the Mount Helen Campus. By 2022 she has a net worth of $3.1 billion.
Back in 2010, paying gas, electricity, telephone bills, and recharging our mobiles, DTH, and more wasn’t as easy as it is now. Then, Freecharge was one of the companies that came into being, which greatly helped the Indian masses to empower their digital ways. Sandeep Tandon was one of the founders of this precursor of today’s digital payments app, Freecharge, which he founded in 2010 with Kunal Shah.
A technology investor and one of the most successful entrepreneurs of India, Sandeep Tandon was a student of Bombay Scottish, after which he pursued a Bachelor’s and then Masters of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California. Sandeep started his career with a Los Angeles startup where he worked as an application manager.
However, it wasn’t long before he left the company and initiated his own venture, Celetronix but that was again sold to Jabil Circuits.
Freecharge was the next company that he founded, which emerged as the fastest-growing mobile payments app in India. After a short but successful period, Freecharge was acquired by Snapdeal and then eventually acquired by Axis bank, which currently owns the company.
Being a successful entrepreneur with years of experience, Sandeep Tandon is currently serving as the Managing Director of Tandon Group, as an Angel investor, and a mentor to the young entrepreneurs.
As eccentric as its name, Bewakoof boasts of an incredibly successful run as a casual wear and accessories hotspot for the current generation and undoubtedly a major part of its success goes to its Founder Director, Prabhkiran Singh. He along with Siddharth Munot founded Bewakoof.com back in 2010, which has since been a raging success for its unique printed t-shirts, joggers, funky mobile covers, and other accessories.
Both being civil engineering graduates from IIT Bombay, Prabhkiran and Siddharth were well-known to each other. In fact, both of them started with their independent startups right after they completed studies but none of them truly worked before Bewakoof was launched, which disrupted the Indian markets, promoting the “silliness” when it comes to fashion.
The estimated annual revenue of Bewakoof in 2020 was INR 200 Crores. The net worth of Bewakoof is estimated at INR 100 Crores.
The Indian traditional consumer products market was all saturated and boring, hoping for an upcoming disruption, which Mamaearth brought with its honest, organic, and safe products. The initial idea emerged out of a real-life problem that Varun and Ghazal Alagh faced while raising their own baby.
All of us want to extend our utmost care and best quality products to a newborn and Varun and Ghazal Algh wanted the same for their baby. However, it was when they were expecting their baby that they found the reality about the Indian baby products, none of which met the safety standards required to be applied on a baby. They first started to import baby products from the US but that was neither feasible nor less of a burden to their finances.
This made the research, apply for proper certifications and resulted in the launch of Mamaearth after 4 years of hard work and R&D. Mamaearth is currently hailed as the first Asian brand with the MadeSafe certification for its toxin-free and entirely herbal products. Furthermore, it boasts of having served over 1.5 million customers across 500+ cities of India. The parents turned entrepreneurs, Varun Alagh and Ghazal Alagh have achieved an envious success and are looking forward to a brighter way ahead as one of the most successful Indian entrepreneurs.
The company has expanded into offline distribution through multi-brand retail outlets and exclusive stores, to both online and offline markets. Their next step is to expand the offline business to 100,000 outlets and 100 Indian cities. The company has estimated revenue of INR964 crore in FY22, a growth of 109% over the past year.
PhonePe is akin to digital payments in today’s India. This market leader of a UPI-based digital payments platform was founded by Sameer Nigam, along with his co-founders, Rahul Chari and Burzin Engineer in December 2015.
Sameer Nigam has an MBA in Entrepreneurship from The Wharton School. After completing his schooling at DPS Noida, Sameer went to study Computer Engineering at the University of Mumbai and then completed a Masters of Science in Computer Engineering from the University of Arizona, finally finishing his MBA in 2009.
Sameer served as the Director of Search Product Development at Shopzilla for a little over 6 years, after which he launched Mime360, an online social media distribution channel. Mime360 was eventually acquired by Flipkart, where he again served as a Senior Vice President, Engineering but he left the company after one and half years to start his own company, PhonePe.
PhonePe has since been a roaring success! PhonePe continues to be the top player in the Indian payments ecosystem and accounted for nearly 50 percent of all UPI transactions processed in December 2022, According to National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI).
Conclusion
We hope this list of famous Indian entrepreneurs motivates you to act on that startup idea you have in your head. Who else do you think should be featured in this list? And what makes you go gaga over him or her?
Contact: shubham@startuptalky.com
FAQs
Who is the youngest entrepreneur in India?
Shravan Kumaran and Sanjay Kumaran are the youngest entrepreneurs in India. They co-founded the company called ‘GoDimensions’ a development unit, in 2011 at their home at the age of 10.
Who is the world’s richest person?
The world’s richest person is none other than the founder and CEO of Tesla, Elon Musk, who boasts of a net worth of $223 billion, as of February 28, 2022.
Who is the richest Indian?
Mukesh Ambani is the richest Indian with a wealth of $103 Billion, as of March 2022.
Is a CEO an owner?
The title of CEO is typically given to someone by the board of directors. Owner is a job title that is earned by sole proprietors and entrepreneurs, who have total ownership of the business. However, these job titles are not mutually exclusive — CEOs can be owners and owners can be CEOs.
Who are the leading Indian entrepreneurs now?
To name some of the most prominent Indian entrepreneurs, we must list:
Bajaj Group is an Indian multinational company that is one of the oldest and largest conglomerates of India.
The group comprises 34 companies with around 36,000 employees across businesses such as two- and three-wheelers, insurance and steel, home appliances, travel and finance, etc. Its flagship company Bajaj Auto ranks as the world’s fourth-largest two- and three-wheeler manufacturer. Some of the notable companies are Bajaj Auto Ltd, Bajaj Finserv Ltd, Hercules Hoists Ltd, Bajaj Electricals, Mukand Ltd, Bajaj Hindusthan Ltd and Bajaj Holding & Investment Ltd.
In recent news, the Bajaj Group has pledged to donate ₹200 crores towards Covid-19 response in addition to ₹100 crores they donated last year to support the government’s fight against the deadly pandemic.
The Bajaj Group of Companies was founded by Jamnalal Bajaj in 1926.
Jamnalal Bajaj was a freedom fighter and a philanthropist, a close confidante of Mahatma Gandhi. He took the novel step of using business to serve society. His endeavors were taken forth and developed by his sons Shri Kamalnayan Bajaj, Ramakrishna Bajaj, and further by his grandson Shri Rahul Bajaj; who are responsible for blossoming the Group and nurtured it to the marvelous stature that it occupies today.
All You Need to Know About Bajaj
Bajaj started its business by setting up a sugar factory in Lakhimpur Kheri of Uttar Pradesh, which was one among the only 30 sugar mills that established the endowment of the sugar industry in India. Today, Bajaj Hindusthan Sugar Ltd. is Asia’s number one sugar manufacturing company and ranks globally among the top four.
Jamnalal Bajaj strongly believed that the common good was more important than individual gain.
Flagship Companies of Bajaj Group
Bajaj Auto Ltd.
Bajaj Auto manufactures two-wheelers and three-wheelers and is headquartered in Pune, Maharashtra.
Bajaj Auto Ltd.
In 1945, Bachraj Trading Corp. Pvt.Ltd., now known as Bajaj Auto Ltd. was founded. Its activity was focused on the selling of foreign motorcycles and auto-rickshaws on the territory of India. In 1959, it was licensed by the government to manufacture two-wheelers and three-wheelers in India. Rahul Bajaj, the son of Kamalnayan Bajaj, later became the head of the Bajaj group in 1965.
Since the year 1995, Bajaj has manufactured more than a million vehicles per year. Nowadays, Bajaj sells its motorcycles, bajaj automobiles, and auto-rickshaws in more than 50 countries of the world and it can compete on the market due to the low prices for its vehicles.
Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance Co. Ltd
Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance is a private general insurance company by Bajaj Group. It is a joint venture between Bajaj Finserv Limited and Allianz SE, a German financial services company; where Bajaj Finserv Limited holds 74% and the remaining 26% is held by Allianz SE.
Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance Co. Ltd
In 2001, Bajaj Allianz General Insurance received an Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) certificate of registration which allowed it to conduct general insurance business, including health insurance, in India.
In January 2014, the company announced it would open up all-women branches.
Bajaj Finserv Ltd.
Bajaj Finserv Limited is a part of Bajaj Holdings & Investments Limited. It is a financial services company by Bajaj which focuses on lending, asset management, wealth management, and insurance. It is a consumer-focused company that emphasizes profitable growth and operational efficiency to deliver the best results to all its stakeholders.
Bajaj Finserv Ltd.
Bajaj Finserv won the CIO 100 Innovation Award for two innovations – EMI Card and Flexisaver, for exemplifying the highest level of operational and strategic excellence in information technology (IT).
Bajaj Electricals Ltd.
Bajaj Electricals is an Indian consumer electrical equipment manufacturing company based in Mumbai, Maharashtra. It has diversified with interests in lighting, luminaries, appliances, fans, LPG-based generators, engineering, and projects. Its main domains are lighting, consumer durable, engineering, and projects.
Bajaj Electricals Ltd.
It was incorporated on 14 July 1938 under the Indian Company Act, 1913 as a public company limited.
Bajaj Finance Ltd.
Bajaj Finance is a bajaj group subsidiary of Bajaj Finserv. It is a non-banking financial company that deals with Consumer Finance, SME (Small and Medium-sized Enterprises) and Commercial Lending, and Wealth Management. The company has 294 consumer branches and 497 rural locations with over 33,000+ distribution points, with headquarters situated in Pune, Maharashtra.
Hercules Hoists Ltd.
Hercules Hoists is a manufacturer of material-handling equipment. The company sells its products under the brand name Indef.
Bajaj Hercules Hoists Ltd.
Incorporated in the year 1962 with technical and financial collaboration from Heinrich de Fries GmbH, Germany; it is a Small Cap company (having a market cap of INR 304.80 Crore) operating in the Industrial Consumables sector.
Hind Musafir Agency Ltd.
Hind Musafir Agency Ltd.
Hind Musafir Agency Ltd. (HMA) is a full-service, IATA-certified travel agency. A part of the Bajaj Group of companies, it is in the business with over 50 years of experience. HMA is also recognized by the Department of Tourism (DOT) India and is a member of “The Travel Agents Association of India” (TAAI)and “Pacific Asia Travel Association” (PATA). HMA has also placed a strong IT backbone with an AMADEUS-enabled system for online Air Bookings.
Mukand Ltd.
Mukand Limited is a multi-division company involved in the business of Manufacturing Steel and Industrial Machinery. Incorporated in 1937 in Mumbai, it manufactures stainless steel, alloy steel, stainless steel billets, exporter of hot-rolled bars.
Mukand Ltd.
Today, Mukand Limited is a leading supplier of alloy steel to the automobile and auto component industry and a leader in the manufacture of high-grade stainless steel in India.
Bajaj Holdings and Investment Ltd.
Bajaj Holdings and Investment Ltd. is a non-banking financial company that is primarily an investment company. The Company focuses on generating long-term capital appreciation. It also provides strong financial, managerial, and operational support to its group companies. Bajaj Auto Holdings Ltd. is a subsidiary of the Company. It is headquartered in Pune.
Bajaj Holdings & Investment Ltd.
Corporate Social Responsibility(CSR) of Bajaj Group
The CSR Policy of Bajaj Group involves various welfare activities that are guided by the concept of trusteeship in business. It is the group’s philosophy that the true and full measure of growth, success, and progress lies beyond the balance sheets or conventional economic indices.
The social and welfare objectives of the Bajaj Group are being fulfilled through the many Trusts and Foundations it has established spending up to 100 million (US$1.4 million) every year.
The major CSR areas of Bajaj Group are Health, Women Empowerment, Education, Rural Development, Environment & Natural Resources and, Self- Reliance.
Conclusion
For Indian society, Bajaj Group is more than a corporate identity. It is an incentive for social empowerment. It offers an extensive range of products and services, now standing tall in the Corporate World.
Bajaj Group – FAQs
Who is the founder of the Bajaj company?
Jamnalal Bajaj is the founder of the Bajaj company.
When was the Bajaj company founded?
The Bajaj company was founded in 1926.
Is Bajaj an Indian Company?
Yes, Bajaj is an Indian conglomerate founded by Jamnalal Bajaj an Indian freedom fighter.
Who is the chairman of Bajaj Group?
Rahul Bajaj is the chairman of Bajaj Auto. Rahul’s grandfather Jamnalal Bajaj founded the Bajaj Group in 1926 and his father Kamalnayan Bajaj succeeded him in 1942.
How many companies are there in the Bajaj group?
There are 34 companies in the Bajaj group including Bajaj Auto Ltd, Bajaj Holdings and Investments Ltd, Mukand Ltd, Bajaj Electricals Ltd, Bajaj International Pvt. Ltd, Bajaj Allianz General Insurance Pvt. Ltd and Bajaj Finserv Ltd.
Is Bajaj Finance good for long-term investment?
Bajaj Finance offers an interest rate that is higher than that offered by most FD providers. This makes it ideal for you to invest in Bajaj Finance Fixed Deposits for long-term benefits.
Is Bajaj FD safe?
Bajaj Finance FD carries FAAA rating by CRISIL and MAAA rating by ICRA, which indicate the highest safety for your capital. These ratings imply a safe investment environment and ensure that you get your returns in a timely manner, without any default on the part of the issuer.
“Rules of Hiring #1: If there is doubt, there is no doubt. Rules of Hiring #2: Always hire people who are smarter than you.”
-Sachin Bansal, Founder of Flipkart
Shashank ND | Inspiring Indian Quotes
“Never hire someone to do your initial sales. In fact you should acquire your first hundred customers yourself”
Quoted by- Sashank ND, Founder of Practo
Abhishek Goyal | Inspiring Indian Quotes
“Raise money from investors who are more excited about the BUSINESS or MARKET than the TEAM. They can help discover amazing opportunities”
Quoted by- Abhishek Goyal, Founder of Traxcn
Kunal Shah | Inspiring Indian Quotes
“I strongly believe all students should have a startup during college. Doesn’t matter if successful or how big or small. Worst case scenario it will make them 10x better employee than someone with no exposure to how a business works”
“If you fully accept the worst that can ever happen in your journey, fear won’t ever be an obstacle in starting-up”
Quoted by- Kunal Shah, Founder of Freecharge
Kunal Shah is the founder of FreeCharge, which recently got acquired by Axis Bank for $60 million. Before that, Snapdeal had acquired FreeCharge in the year 2015 for about $400 million. He has done his MBA from Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies and studied at Wilson College, Mumbai.
Girish Mathrubootham | Inspiring Indian Quotes
“Building a company is similar to building a product. Culture is the UX for employees & Support is the UX for customers.”
“Don’t be a jerk! Even if you are brilliant, don’t be a brilliant jerk.”
Quoted by- Girish Mathorrobootha, Founder of Freshworks
Girish Mathrubootham is the founder of Freshworks which is a software-based service company. Prior to this, he was the VP of Product Management at ZOHO Corporation.
Rahul Yadav | Inspiring Indian Quotes
“There is no secret ingredient. To make something special you just have to believe it’s special.”
Quoted by- Rahul Yadav, Founder of Housing
Shradha Sharma | Inspiring Indian Quotes
“It’s a long long road. Sometimes all you need are people who pat your back and say, carry on. Thank you to everyone who encourages.”
Quoted by- Sharaddha Sharma, Founder of Yourstory
Ritesh Agarwal | Inspiring Indian Quotes
“Building predictability on top of market place economy is how new age businesses will get built. Super excited”
“It is extremely important to build something that a 100 people absolutely love using rather than making something that a 1000 people would just, kind of, like.”
Quoted by- Ritesh Agarwal, Founder of OYO
Ritesh Agarwal is founder of OYO which is India’s largest marketplace for branded and budget hotels. OYO Rooms worth over $1 Billion. He began working on the project in 2012. Agarwal started his venture in Gurgoan and it is now spread in 230 cities in India and also in countries like UAE, Nepal, China and many others.
Kunal Bahl | Inspiring Indian Quotes
“Scale is important for a startup. Think big, but take one day at a time.”
Quoted by- Kunal Bahl, Co-Founder of SnapDeal –
Co-founder of Snapdeal, Kunal Bahl, did his schooling from Delhi Public School, R.K. Puram and went to Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania. He and his friend Rohit Bansal launched this Indian startup in 2010. He worked with Microsoft at the beginning of his career. Today, his e-commerce platform is a huge success and is competing with Amazon and Flipkart.
Deepinder Goyal | Inspiring Indian Quotes
“The fundamental model of our business is that in mature markets we should make profits and they shouldn’t need any more outside money to grow.”
Quoted by- Deepinder Goyal, Founder Zomato
“If you want to walk fast, walk alone. But if you want to walk far, walk together.”
“I don’t believe in taking right decisions, I take decisions and make them right.”
Quoted by- Ratan Tata, Chairman of Tata Group
“However big or small, make it a good business, make it a clean business, make it a business you are very proud of.”
“Today I see a billion people as a billion potential consumers, an opportunity to generate value for them and to make a return for myself”
“It is important to achieve our goals, but not at any cost.”
Quoted by- Mukesh Ambani, CEO & Chairman of Reliance
“If people are not laughing at your goals, your goals are too small”
“Leadership is the self-confidence of working with people smarter than you.”
Quoted by- Azim Premji, Chairman of Wipro
“Whether ecommerce companies make money or not, these logistics companies make revenue which is guaranteed for them by ecommerce transactions.”
Quoted by- Arvind Singhal, MD of Technopak
Arvind Singhal is graduate from IIT Roorkee and did his MBA from UCLA, USA. It is India’s leading Managing Consulting firm focusing on retail, consumer product, fashion-textiles and apparel and many more.
“The trade market is the place with the least scope for emotions, especially of fear and greed.”
Quoted by- Rachit Chawla, Co-Founder of Finway Capital
Rachit Chawla from Aston Business School has done his Bachelor’s in Commerce. He is the co-founder of Finway Capital. Finway Capital talks about loan funding. It funds people and helps creating wealth and give personal loans and insurance.
“Entrepreneurship is akin to riding a dragon – there are more ups and downs than you can ever imagine. But every challenge on the way only makes you stronger, and every failure only bears new learnings.”
Quoted by- Yatin Hans, Founder of Bigsmall
Yatin Hans, Bigsmall.in which promotes gifting culture in India. It gives unique and fun gifts to the Indian public. He has done his schooling from Heritage School and B.Com Honours from Delhi University. He later went to ESADE Business School to complete his Masters in Marketing.
“Human capital is the most precious of all forms of capital available”
Quoted by- Ajay Ramasubramaniam, Ryerson Futures Inc.
Ajay Ramasubramaniam, Director of Zone Startups, is promoting Indian operating system as well as initiatives including corporation innovation programs and thematic accelerators and has raised around Rs. 150 crores. He has done his MBA from Mumbai University in Finance and Marketing.
Being a successful startup owner is not an easy task- it is counted as one of the most difficult jobs in the world. Many successful people don’t have a college degree but success doesn’t require a degree. The two most well-known names include those Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg. These are stories that are known to the world. There are many more dropouts which are yet to be known because of their rigorous hard work and dedication towards the path of becoming a successful entrepreneur. So, let us see the insights on the topic- 5 College Dropouts Entrepreneurs In The Indian Startup Ecosystem.
Ritesh Agarwal is one of the top Indian college dropouts who became successful in India. He is the founder and CEO of hospitality business and app – Oyo Rooms – a network of 2,200 hotels operating in 154 cities across India – with monthly revenues of $3.5m and 1,500 employees. He holds a high school degree from St. Johns Senior Secondary School. He dropped out of college and sold sim cards to survive in spite of coming from a well-to-do family.
He travelled a lot, stayed at budget hotels and attended customer calls. This proved to be a good experience which helped him establish his business very firmly. OYO Rooms is a room aggregator business. The idea man behind OYO rooms is Ritesh Agarwal. Ritesh founded a company Oravel. He was obsessed with the idea of providing a budget enabled hotel at the age of 18 yrs. Later, he rebranded this concept to OYO Rooms.
His model attracted many investors. Some of these include Light speed Ventures, Sequoia Capital and Green Oaks Capital. It has raised a total of $125million of funding in 4 rounds from 7 investors. Agarwal has won many awards and accolades for his work including the Business World Young Entrepreneur Award. He is a regular speaker at entrepreneurial conferences and institutes across India and the world and a fellow of the Thiel Foundation.
He is another top Successful Indian College Dropout Entrepreneurs. He dropped out to start Freecharge. He co-founded Freecharge with Sandeep Tandon. Freecharge is a concept in the online recharging system. It offered a three-step recharge with exciting cashback offers. He founded the company in 2010. It was recently acquired by SnapDeal. He studied for his BA at Wilson College. He acquired a degree in philosophy and went onto study business management at NMIMS. But he dropped out. His first venture was Paisaback. This offered cash back from retailers.
He dropped out of Osmania University to sell vacuum cleaners. He went door to door to make sales. Post that he started writing. He wrote for Unilever, Pepsi and MTV among others. He also did a lot of creative ad campaigns and became a creative director. He created several top-notch commercials, which won him awards. He founded the ad agency Pinstorm in 2004.
Pinstorm is a leading search engine marketing firm in Asia. He offered a ‘pay-for-performance’ model. This worked well with most corporate and was received well for a start-up. He has counselled in marketing for 29 years and spent over thirteen years helping start-ups. He has helped seed fund and founded over ten start-up ventures in India alone. He believes that entrepreneurs should “Dream Big. The earth’s the limit.”
Percentage of College Dropouts By Age
4. Kailash Katkar
Kailash Katkar- Quick Heal
Born on the 1st of November 1966, in the village of Rahimatpur in Maharashtra, the Founder, CEO and Chairman of the Rs. 200-crore+ Quick Heal Technologies. He grew up in Pune, where his father used to work at Philips as a machine setter. Kailash had to drop out of his studies soon after he completed his SSC (10th Grade), primarily due to family circumstances. He started his career by working in repairs shop to help his family financially. He repaired calculators and radios. Later, in 1990, he started his own repairs shop. In 1993, he started a computer repair zone– CAT.
He was inspired as his younger brother Sanjay, had developed anti-virus software to solve their issue of computer maintenance. As time went on, he rebranded and expanded. By 2007, he named his company Quick Heal Technologies. It is the first company in India to create and market an antivirus solution. It has also started an R&D section for research in security solutions. The company masters the art of cloud-based security and advanced machine learning enabled solutions to stop threats, attacks and malicious traffic before it strikes with the help of its services.
This service includes– Quick Heal Total Security, Quick Heal Internet Security, Quick Heal PCTuner 3.0, etc for the Home Users, along with Quick Heal Total Security for Android, Quick Heal Mobile Security, Quick Heal Gadget Securance, Fonetastic Free, Fonetastic Pro, etc for the Mobile users. The company today has transformed into an IT security solutions empire which is spread across 60 countries worldwide including 31 branch offices across India along with offices in countries like Japan, USA, Kenya and Dubai.
5. Rahul Yadav
Rahul Yadav- HOUSING.COM
Rahul born to a middle-class family from Rajasthan is an IIT (Bombay) final year dropout. He had enrolled at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay in 2007 to specialize in metallurgy. He also went on to serve as the representative and secretary for the university’s student association as well. Dropping out of IIT in the fourth years is not easy. It’s even tougher to succeed after that or so you would believe. But Rahul Yadav proved otherwise.
Not only did he drop out of IIT, but he also launched a successful portal, Housing.com. He co-founded this portal and became CEO. This portal helps to search and sell properties worth millions. Within the first week itself, the portal sold properties worth eight million. Yadav was featured in the Forbes list of young entrepreneurs – “30 under 30”. The company today, with a strong team of 2500 people housing.com is valued at ₹1500 crores.
The company at the moment gets more than 11 million visitors on the website/month and has also crossed a million app downloads as well. And talking about their funding rounds, housing.com has raised a total of $139.5 Million in 4 Rounds from 6 Investors including – SoftBank Capital, Helion Venture Partners, Qualcomm Ventures.
Today, Ratan Tata needs no introduction as he is the most respected business tycoon in India. He is an Indian industrialist, philanthropist, former chairman of Tata Group and Tata Sons. Post his retirement in 2012 he has turned into an avid angel investor who has left an everlasting impact. He is well-known for investing in some of the most successful startups today.
So far, Ratan Tata has invested in over two dozen startups, including top unicorns of India, like furniture e-tailer Urban Ladder, digital payments app Paytm, ride-hailing company Ola and its electric vehicle arm Ola Electric Mobility, Cure.fit, Urban Ladder, etc. His investment may only be a few million dollars, according to industry sources, but what’s invaluable is having the 81-year-old tycoon’s name attached to a young startup.
So, how Ratan Tata: the accidental startup investor turned into an avid angel investor? Let’s take a look.
Name
Ratan Tata
Born
Surat, India
Age
82
Citizenship
Indian
Education
Cornell University College of Architecture, Harvard Business School
Title
Indian Industrialist, Philanthropist, and a Former chairman of Tata Sons
Occupation
Businessman
Net Worth
Rs. 6396 Crore
Awards
CNN-IBN Indian of the Year in Business, Padma Bhushan, Padma Vibhushan
First Investment made by Ratan Tata
The 81-year-old also said that he became a startup investor by accident. He added that he used to look at the sector as exciting always but somewhat untouchable. Tata further mentioned that with two-three years into the sector, it has become a learning experience for him as he got to learn many aspects regarding investment in startups.
The business magnate, better known as the ”Accidental Startup Investor”, was always interested in the startup ecosystem. He mentioned that his tenure as the chairman of Tata Group as this sector meant conflicts if he would take up any entrepreneurial assignment. But once Mr. Tata retired, he wasted no time in becoming a full-time investor through his private investment vehicle—RNT Associates.
Ratan Tata said that when he retired, at first he started making small token investments in what he considered exciting companies. He admitted that in the beginning, he intended to take some more risks than he might have taken under different circumstances. With two-three years into this, it became a learning experience, as this sector is very active and has the best minds.
The first investment he made was in Snapdeal in 2014 which yielded great results. The CEO of Snapdeal, Kunal Bahl, has high regards for Ratan Tata and considers him to be a lucky charm for Snapdeal. He is believed to have bought a 0.17% stake in Snapdeal in August 2014, when he invested less than Rs 5 crore. Tata bought 256 shares from the e-commerce company’s angel investors, including Kenneth Glass.
Other Investments made by Ratan Tata
Following this, he has invested in 31 startups. After Snapdeal, the online furniture retailer Urban Ladder secured funding from Ratan Tata in November 2015. It was Tata’s second personal investment in an e-commerce firm. It is a popular furniture selling platform based in Bengaluru. It is currently present in 12 cities around India.
Paytm, a Noida-based digital-payments company saw an overnight jump in subscribers by millions, after Demonetization of announced by the government on November 8, 2018. The company had secured an undisclosed amount of funding from Ratan Tata in March 2015. Tata bought a stake in One97 Communications, the parent company of Paytm.
Ola Cabs is India’s answer to Uber. Much like Uber, Ola provides cab services across all price segments, ranging from economic to luxury. Beginning its operations in 2010, Ola secured funding from Ratan Tata in July 2015.
Ratan Tata is the first Indian to buy a stake in Chinese tech giant Xiaomi best known for its affordable smartphones. It’s true, the amount Tata invested in Xiaomi was not disclosed. Similarly, services marketplace UrbanClap raised an undisclosed amount in funding from Ratan Tata in December 2015. In April 2016, Lenskart, the popular online retailer that sells eyewear secured funding from Tata.
Ratan Tata has invested in More than 30 Start-ups
Tata, while referring to the growth of budding startups said, “We are looking at the India of tomorrow and the day after, and the start-up industry is entering the global field in a manner where competition is open. The fact is we (Indians) are entrepreneurs at heart. Maybe what we need is the opportunity to flourish and I think the startup industry is doing just that.”
Ratan N. Tata has invested in over 30 startups. Among these, there are several technology-based startups too. Tata has made all these investments in his personal capacity. Ratan Tata has not restricted himself to a sector and stepped into a variety of diverse strata, be it clothing, weather, pet care services, etc., but technology catches his attention.
He holds the view that technology can be applied and used in any sector and the future is all about technology. He has recently invested in Tork Motors and Ola Electric. Ratan Tata has been supporting Ola since 2015. He openly expresses his excitement of participating in new areas and encourages young minds to search for domains yet to be explored.
Ratan Tata believes startups should get funded by Indian investors. According to him, the startup sector is growing rapidly with the best of minds involved in it. He regrets seeing such companies having great potential that could add value to the Indian economy but being bound to foreign authorities. Thus, Tata finds it unfortunate that founders get driven by foreign investments in the hope of an eventual acquisition by a larger entity.
He tells his decisions are intuition-driven, but the steps he has taken by now proves his intuitions are calculated risk oriented. He prefers getting into conversation with founders, analyze their personality, skills, their maturity, and the seriousness and most importantly, their zeal and dedication.
And like any other investor, he judges the future scope of pitched ideas. Tata has told in his case selection is more by intuition than by numbers. He further revealed that judging the intent of the founders and their seriousness influenced him more than any other factor.
How to Approach Ratan Tata for Investment?
Is Approaching Ratan Tata Difficult? As a matter of fact, its not. He is as approachable as any other investor. A few things to keep in mind if you plan to seek investment from the business tycoon:
Your idea should be unique and hold great potential.
The startup should have begun its operations, at least on a small-scale.
Tangible feedback on the startup and its product or service is a must. Remember, Ola got funding from RNT Associates 5 years after it began.
He is a man of experience, so it is advisable to be realistic and honest. Sniffing out non-sense is easy for him.
Being a personal investor, he prefers keeping the details of his investment private. He hates it when the media makes such information public. You will find it difficult to find the exact amount of his investments online, even when it comes to the biggest players he’s backing.
When asked what makes a good entrepreneur, he told what probably drives an entrepreneur to start a business is the fire in his belly that there is a better way to do something that has been done or a good opportunity to make a difference because something has not been explored well enough. And the confidence of staying with it is deciding factor of a good entrepreneurs. This is one thing to keep in mind while approaching Ratan Tata for investment.
Being creative takes courage. In today’s time, there is a constant cut-throat competition which one gets enrolled into without getting to even discover yourself first. It is at a very young age many parents decide what their kid’s future is going to be. To ace in this very race of success – you can either be a follower or a leader. A follower is obedient, patient and hard-working. A leader is also hard-working, but also innovative and a risk taker. And when one chooses the path of his own, it’s a road journey which is written by themselves.
Our youth today is a bit demotivated and lethargic, so they starve for even a little bit of hope and inspiration. There are a huge amount of resources available, there is widespread internet connectivity, innumerable exchange of technology, knowledge and information, and all this it present right in front of you. You just have to grab it.
Yes, it will require hard work and patience too, and some failures will be inevitable but you have to keep the faith in yourself and your idea.
In this article we will discuss about the youngest entrepreneursof India and try to give a little dosage of motivation to you through the way of their success stories.
Shravan and Sanjay Kumaran
Shravan and Sanjay Kumaran | Youngest Entrepreneur India
Shravan and Sanjay are siblings of the age 17 and 15 respectively. They are the youngest upcoming entrepreneurs of India. They together came up with “GoDimensions” which is a company that aims at developing a simple technological solution for the digital world. The brothers are also the youngest Mobile App Developers in India. The Kumaran brothers give due credit to “reading books and solving problems given to them” as the mantra to their success.
Tilak Mehta
Tilak Mehta | Youngest Entrepreneur India
Tilak Mehta is a 13 year old boy who launched his company called Paper N Parcels in 2018 and it aims at easing courier services in Mumbai. His startup Paper N Parcels is dedicated to carrying small parcels and papers within Mumbai for assured intra-day delivery. It is amazing to note that he is still a student studying in 8 th standard. He is a budding entrepreneur who has founded a logistics startup, sold the idea to a banker and somehow convinced him to quit his job and join him as the Chief Executive. He also roped Dabbawalas to help him with the last-mile distribution.
Trishneet Arora is the founder and CEO of TAC Security which is a cyber-security company based in Mohali, and he is 25 years old only. He was 19 when he started TAC security in 2013 which performs vulnerability assessment and penetration testing for corporates and identifying weakness in their cyber security thereafter.
Trishneet failed in 8th standard and signed up for distance education but failed again in 12th standard. He said he was never interested in studies and was always a backbencher. He taught himself how to “hack” at a very young age and wrote a book called “The Hacking Era” which was published in 2013.
Trishneet knew he could make a profession out of hacking and went out to focus on digitization and organizations that were reaching out to ‘ethical hackers’ to build resilient defense systems against cyber attacks. And that underscored the potential of his business. The demand for such services are growing day by day and Tishneet is sure he will thrive in the future too.
Kavita Shukla
Kavita Shukla | Youngest Entrepreneur India
Kavita Shukla holds a BA from Harvard University and is the founder and CEO of Freshglow Co. and the inventor of Freshpaper – a simple innovation taking on the massive global challenges of food waste. She holds four patents and is the youngest women ever to receive the biennial Index Design to Improve Life Award which is the world’s largest prize for design. Her work has also been featured by The New York Times, The Washington Post, Bloomberg, Oprah Magazine, Glamour, The Today Show, and CNN. She was also featured on Forbes list of “30 under 30” and Time’s Magazine’s “5 Most Innovative Women in Food”.
Deepak Ravindran was a science student who loved computers. But he decided to drop out of college to pursue his first startup venture. He is the Co-Founder and CEO of Innoz Technologies which is a service that provides wireless market and gives solutions for mobile search applications. Deepak started this business along with five of his friends. He also came up with SMSgyan – a text message based search engine which works on a format, and this service was started in 2011. He is also working on a new chat based delivery platform called “Lookup”, and it already has some big investors.
Sreelakshmi Suresh
Sreelaxmi Suresh | Youngest Entrepreneur India
Sreelakshmi is the youngest web designer and CEO in the world, presently at the age of 21. She designed and developed the official website of her school located in Kozhikode, Kerala, when she was only 8 years old. She has many accolades to her name. She has received many national and international awards.
At the age of 10, she designed and established eDesign which is a now venture web designing company that offers SEO, we design, and other such services. Sreelakshmi Suresh has come up with and developed over a 100 websites for renowned institutions and organizations across the nation.
Akhilendra Sahu is the founder and CEO of ASTNT Technologies Pvt. Ltd. and Technical Next Technologies. He did that at the age of 17. ASTNT is an India based company that provides digital marketing, web development, application development, SEO services and similar services. Technical Nest Technologies provides the best webhosting solutions in India. Akhilendra has many sub brands and his app is published on google play store. He also ranked no. 1 web designer in Madhya Pradesh, India.
King Siddharth
King Siddharth | Youngest Entrepreneur India
Siddharth is an Entrepreneur, Product & Design Leader and Public Speaker, and is one of India’s top young entrepreneurs. Sidharth was also a drop out but he never stopped learning. He started an online magazine called “Friendz” at the age of 18.
He is presently the head of product design at Instamojo – a website that helps small and medium sized businesses with their day-to-day needs like payments, credits, logistics, tax-compliances, etc. At present, they serve around 3 lakh businesses. He is also a speaker on entrepreneur design, career and life to college students and has given speeches at NIT, TEDx, NMIMS, and more such places.
Arjun Rai has been an exemplary networker and worked on a few projects and startups of his own while he was still a student. He became COO of an online advertising company that was quickly growing in 2010 and is now looking to startup with Odysseys Ads.
After graduating from New York Institute of Technology he has started two startups – The BizDen and FuelBrite.com. Arjun then went on to invest and build a startup which ventured in the tech space and is one of the leaders in visual project management called Canvs+. Arjun Rai is an inspiration for others who always believed that one should surround oneself with people who will motivate you to do great things and leave those people who can’t see others climbing the stairs of success.
Ritesh Aggarwal
Ritesh Aggarwal | Youngest Entrepreneur India
One of the most successful stories of entrepreneurs in India is that of Ritesh Aggarwal. Ritesh Aggarwal is the founder and CEO of OYO – the budget room service provider. He dropped out of college, as he seemed to always have a vision about having a business, and he launched his first startup called Oravel Stays at just the age of 18. It was budget hotel chain that provided B&B and later on it elevated to OYO rooms. At that time no other service offered a room which could be in a budget traveler. Ritesh started OYO with only eleven rooms in a Gurgaon hotel. And today OYO has 65,000 rooms in about 5,500 properties across 170 cities in India.
Advait Thakur is a Computer programmer, Young Entrepreneur, AI Researcher. Advait Thakur is a founder of Apex Infosys Inida, Apex Business Solutions Digital Agency. He started using computer at age 6, he launched his first website at age 9. He started Apex Business Solutions Digital Agency in 2015 as a web development company that brings brands on the web.
In 2017, at age fourteen, he built “Technology Quiz”. This is an app to help kids learn about Science & Technology for google assistance. Then, Advait was accepted for Google Assistant. He had also developed a personal assistant that controls IOT devices of house on voice commands with the help Google’s Open Source gRPC API. He is also member at IBM developer Works. He is also a former Senior Developer at #1 Android Forum, XDA-Developers.
The story of these young entrepreneurs of India tells us that entrepreneurship is not about the age but about the mind set. If you really want to do it, you can do it either at the age of 10 or even at 80. All you need is a great mind set.
If we left any Young Entrepreneur from India, do let us know in the comments so that we can cover their story in this list.
Do you have a decent Social Media reach? Do you want to become a Social Media Influencer and earn some bucks? Somo might help you to start your journey. Somo is the world’s first social media advocates driven marketing platform headquartered at Delhi. Somo connects business as advertisers with social media users as influencers. Thus, helping companies to reach out to closer to people at micro level and at the same time helping social media users to earn some money.
We interviewed the Co-founder, Mr. Sooraj Singh to learn about his journey of building Somo.
Every brand owns a digital space in today’s time. It is because digital marketing benefits businesses of all sizes by giving access to the mass market in a cost-effective & measurable way. According to IAMAI Report, “The growth in spends on Digital Advertising is expected to continue at a CAGR of 30% to touch INR 12,046 Crore by December 2018 in India”. However, the existence of Ad blockers, Blind Spots & Bot Traffic has stopped the communication between digital marketers & their targeted audience, thus jeopardizing a brand’s overall success.
Also, there is no platform that enables social media user to become an Influencer immediately & to monetize the profile. Micro users are always most influential in order to promote services or products of brands. Furthermore, Somo mobile application is the world’s first mobile application that not only helps users to monetize their social media profiles but also quantifies the influential power user has on social media.
Somo’s long term vision is an expansion on all social media platforms as well as global expansion.
Somo – Founders
Somo is a venture by two young & passionate entrepreneurs, Saurabh Goel & Sooraj Singh. Saurabh is a serial entrepreneur with years of experience in marketing & sales. He is an electrical & electronics Engineer. He started his entrepreneurial journey at the age of 18. After working with Simpli5d Technologies for almost 2 years, he had an idea of starting his own digital firm along with his college friend Sooraj Singh. Sooraj Singh is a Computer science engineer & coder since childhood. He has significant experience in different technologies and blockchain.
Somo Founders
Aditi Sharma (VP Marketing) – She has a master’s degree in Science. She has significant experience in Business Development & Digital Marketing.
Somo – The idea and starting up
We were always passionate about building something that can make an impact and contribute effectively to the existing problems around. We believe problem itself is a solution and that is why we started our first venture together named as WebAssets in 2016 with a vision to transform the digital marketing industry. Through WebAssets, we provide very economical services to startups, restaurants and schools so as to fulfil their digital requirements. We initially developed our expertise towards digital marketing and sooner figured out declining effectiveness of digital marketing. We then worked towards innovating new generation of digital marketing. Finally, we are up with Somo: World’s first social media advocates driven marketing platform. We have already gained early traction through Somo.
Somo is the World’s first Social Media Advocates Driven Marketing Platform. In the word Somo- “So” represents Social & “Mo” represents Monetization. We are quantifying the influential power of Social Media users in the platform & helping them to monetize their influence on Social Media & Let them begin the journey of a Social Media Influencer. Thus the Name “Somo” Social Monetization.
Somo Logo
Somo – Industry details
According to reports, India holds the total potential market size of Digital Marketing as INR 19,000 Cr. with CAGR of 28-32%. We believe it is high time to bring in a new generation of digital marketing as internet user’s communication with digital advertisement has gone tremendously low and it is need of the hour to uplift dying traditional media.
Somo is a Patent Pending Technology, registered under “Startup India Program” & “MSME”. The mobile app of Somo lets brands go viral on social media when thousands of KYC verified Social Media users share their content. After the “Sign Up” on the Somo Application, user gets to see several posters of various brands which they can share directly to their Social Media profile. Once they share a post, they earn a certain percentage of revenue which brands pays. Through this model, the user can start monetizing their Social Media profile directly from the very first day.
Once a user shares a post, our integrated algorithm starts tracking several factors to understand the influential power of the user on Social Media. These factors include the number of engagements, number of clicks, number of views etc. This way we put Social Media users in different leagues of influencers like the Bronze league, silver league, gold league etc. This solves a big problem of monetizing Social Media profile for users as well as to understand the influential power one can have on Social Media.
For Brands, with the declining effectiveness of native digital advertisement & the rise of bot engagement on Social Media, it is the need of the hour to take a step forward. Somo plays an important role here by getting the brand’s post shared by multiple users directly from the app. This burst of posting organically on Social Media ultimately delivers high ROI as content now goes in a more integrated and a recommended way on Social Media channels rather than going like a blind spot ad. Also, the chances of bot engagement become negligible because of the KYC verification of Micro-influencers. Brands also get deep insight reports on the performance of the campaign. KPI is delivered through a user-friendly dashboard consisting of graphical analysis representing important KPIs like number of shares, comments, views, etc.
Somo builds up a win-win situation for both brands as well as Social Media users. It gives a dual opportunity for both users & brands. Users can monetize their social media profile & start the journey of being a popular social media influencer and brands can get an organic shootout through the power of these engaging social media profiles, along with the real engagement. Somo mobile application monetizes the users’ basis upon their influential power on social media and ranks them in the leaderboard for them to stay rewarding.
Somo – Revenue model & Sources
We have two revenue models. The main being, we retain a percentage spent by brand as a platform fee and share the remaining revenues with brand advocates. In the SaaS model, we give the control of Somo platform to the brands. We charge a particular fee from the brands to use our model and brands decide what they have to pay to the Brand Advocates.
Users acquisition is done through both online and offline activations. Online activation includes digital campaigns executed through Somo, Google Ads, Facebook etc. whereas offline activation is carried through the student ambassador program at the mass level. We are doing brand acquisition through e-mails and agency connects.
Somo – Current achievement
Somo has already started shaping up the new generation of digital marketing. The company has already collaborated with popular brands such as Mamaearth, Travelur, Milaap, Evibe, Behrouz Biryani, Ovenstory, MomsCo and a lot more! Just within the first month of the application’s launch, Somo received an enormous response . More than 10000+ downloads were done and it had more than 7,000+ registered users.
Somo – Work Culture
We believe in learning and innovations can go hand in hand it can build a fantastic environment for a company. We intend to build a team that works with the company and not for the company. And we will ensure this by providing limitless learning and growth opportunities to our team and respecting everyone’s opinions,
Somo – Funding
We are into the closing phase of our seed round.
Somo – Competitors
We do not have direct competitors. The ones we have are indirect competitors but we are very much different in terms of customers segmentation, business model and execution strategies.
We are very much clear with our future plans. Once we integrate all the relevant social media platforms, we look forward towards global expansion via licensing our technology to various parts of the globe.
We are planning exponential expansion across different Social Media platforms & geographies in quick time. We are expecting more than 1 Million downloads in the next 12 months.
Somo – Awards and recognition
Soma has recently been awarded with Kotler’ Excellence Award at the World Marketing Summit, 2018.
Somo – Founders’ Advice
Today’s youth especially Indians needs to learn the risk-reward system. Going with the safest thing for the career is not always the right one. Most people during their teens aspire to have a completely different path then what they end up doing because they think it has the most career stability. There is a part of life which for taking risks and it is the youth. However, the risks should always be calculated and should have a good risk-reward ratio.
Ashwini
