Do you also get goosebumps when you hear the word “IIT”? Do you also see IITians getting special treatment in social circles (among your family, relatives, friends, neighbours, etc)?
Here, I’ll provide additional reasons to back the statement above. IIT is among the most respected educational institutions in India ever. It has had students who have made an immense impression on students all over the world. It is, without doubt, eminent and highly productive.
IIT is the ideal choice for students who want to study engineering. It is famous for producing the top engineers in the world and there are plenty of IIT graduates who chose another path than they had planned to take. They became entrepreneurs and set up their own startups in the marketplace. Although they’re not experts in their sector, they’re making waves. Let’s take a look at 10 successful startups led by IIT-Grads.
1. OLA
OLA is an Indian multinational ride-sharing company offering services that include a vehicle for hire and food delivery. Founded by Bhavish Aggarwal, a Computer Science and Engineering graduate of IIT Bombay in 2008. He began his career with Microsoft, where he worked for two years, filed two patents, and published three papers in international journals. In January 2011, he co-founded Ola Cabs with Ankit Bhati in Bengaluru.
Now, OLA has a turnover of $320 million and is valued at $6.2 billion in worth. It has over 6000 employees working and is currently available in 169 cities in India. It has expanded in countries like Australia and New Zealand in 2018 and the UK, it started its Auto Rickshaw service in 2019.
Shubham Kumar
2. Flipkart
Founded by Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal in 2007, it is one of the most popular e-commerce in India. Both Sachin and Binny are alumni of IIT Delhi. The two wished to offer Indians an online store that was created in India which led to the making of what we all now know as Flipkart.
Flipkart, which initially started as book sales, expanding into other product categories such as electronics, fashion, and lifestyle products. In August 2018, US-based retail chain Walmart acquired a 77% controlling stake in Flipkart for $16 billion, valuing Flipkart at around $20 billion.
Rishabh Rathi
3. Quikr
Quikr is an Indian online marketplace and classified advertising company, based in Bangalore, India with listings in over 1000 cities in categories such as mobile phones, household goods, cars, real estate, jobs, services, and education. It provides a platform for users to buy or sell goods and services from each other. Other services offered include a missed call service and instant messaging. Quikr was founded by Pranay Chulet and Jiby Thomas in 2008. The CEO of the company Pranay Chulet grew up in Rajasthan and completed his Chemical Engineering from IIT Delhi.
4. Acadboost
Acadboost is started by Kalpit Veerwal, an IIT Bombay student. He has completed his 3rd year of Computer Science Engineering from IIT Bombay and founded AcadBoost Technologies Pvt Ltd in his second year. It is an EdTech startup that aims to provide the correct mentorship to students from experts in various fields of education – ranging from competitive exams like JEE, NEET, CAT, GATE to college.
5. Zomato
After graduating from IIT Delhi, Deepinder Goyal took up work at a company Bain & Co, where he met Pankaj Chaddah, and the duo then started a delivery service Zomato in 2008. Zomato is an Indian multinational restaurant aggregator and food delivery company that provides information, menus, and user reviews of restaurants as well as food delivery options from partner restaurants in select cities. As of 2019, the service is available in 24 countries and in more than 10,000 cities.
Zomato shares made a strong stock market debut on 23rd July 2021, listing at ₹116 apiece on the NSE. Zomato shares surged 53% over the IPO price of ₹76. With the listing, Zomato entered the club of India’s top 100 listed companies with a market capitalization of over ₹90,000 crores. The company’s shares got listed at ₹115 apiece on the BSE.
Rishabh Rathi
6. Khetify
Khetify is an urban farming venture in New Delhi, India founded by IIT Kharagpur graduates Kaustubh Khare and Saahil Parekh that build farms in urban spaces and enable people to grow chemical-free, fresh food. The aim of the startup is to promote food sustainability to city dwellers.
Claiming that 16,000 sq km of rooftop space is being wasted in urban cities, Khetify aims to promote the use of this unutilized space to develop small rooftop farms.
7. InMobi
Founded by Naveen Tewari, an IIT Kanpur graduate. InMobi is an Indian multinational mobile advertising technology company, based in Bangalore. Its mobile-first platform allows brands, developers, and publishers to engage consumers through contextual mobile advertising. In 2008, it was enhanced from SMS-based services to mobile advertising and rebranded as InMobi. It is now competing with giants like Google and Facebook for data-driven mobile advertising. InMobi is one of the top 5 players in the US, China, Southeast Asia, and India. Also, Softbank has invested $200 million in it.
8. Housing.com
Housing.com is founded by Rahul Yadav, an IIT Mumbai alumnus. Housing.com is a Mumbai-based real estate search portal that allows customers to search for housing based on geography, number of rooms, and various other filters. Rahul Yadav was featured in the list of Forbes 30 under 30 young Entrepreneurs. He is known as the bad boy of an Indian startup, gaining comparisons from Steve Jobs. And fun fact, he was once fired from a company.
Chayanika Goswami
9. Shopclues
Founded by Sanjay Sethi, an alumnus of IIT Delhi who previously worked in the US in the field of e-commerce marketplace, online payments, and operations. After serving as a key to establishing eBay in India, he started his own company Shopclues, along with Sandeep and Radhika Aggarwal. ShopClues provides unstructured categories of home and kitchen, fashion, electronics, and daily utility items at wholesale rates. In 2019, the company was acquired by Singapore-based Qoo10 in an all-stock deal valued at approximately US$70 million, representing one of the largest valuation meltdowns for an Indian-based startup.
10. Snapdeal
FYI Snapdeal wasn’t an e-commerce company till 2008, but then it was founded by Rohil Bahl and Kunal Bahl, the former has a Wharton degree while the latter has an IIT Delhi, graduation degree under their belt.
It is now one of the most popular e-commerce websites in India, with over 3,00,000 sellers, over 3 Crore products across 800+ diverse categories from more than 1,25,000 regional, national and international brands and retailers and a reach of 6,000 towns and cities among the country.
Rishabh Rathi
Conclusion
Hope this list of successful Indian businesses that are helmed by IIT graduates helped you gain an understanding of some successful IITians.
FAQs
Which are the top successful startups led by IIM grads?
- Redbus. in
- Naukri.com
- TaxiForSure
- MakeMyTrip
- Reddif.com
- Travel Triangle
- First Cry
Which IIM is best for entrepreneurship?
- IIM Ahmedabad
- IIM Bangalore
- IIM Calcutta
- Indian School of Business, Hyderabad
- S P Jain Institute of Management and Research
Which IIT is best?
- IIT Madras
- IIT Delhi
- IIT Bombay
- IIT Kanpur
- IIT Kharagpur