On Tuesday, Deepinder Goyal, the founder and CEO of Zomato, emphasized the importance for established businesses to support and foster startups without the aim of acquiring them.
“I think established businesses need to nurture startups…and I don’t think we have that kind of a culture yet, and larger businesses also need to start funding startups but not with an intention to own them but with an intention to help them become bigger,” Goyal said, at the curtain raiser event of the Startup Mahakumbh, which is slated to happen on March 18-20.
Adding to the comments of the Zomato chief executive, Sanjeev Bikhchandani, Vice Chairman of Info Edge India, stated that investing in startups was one of the key strategic areas for Info Edge. Notably, the Noida-based company is an investor in Zomato.
Zomato has investments in various consumer tech startups, such as the hyperlocal commerce platform Magicpin, ecommerce enablement startup Shiprocket, and the health and fitness firm Cultfit.
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The central government is hosting the Startup Mahakumbh event, bringing together over 1,000 startups and a diverse array of investors, including angel investors, high-net-worth individuals, venture capitalists, and family offices.
Bikhchandani is part of the organizing committee of the Startup Mahakumbh event alongside Prashanth Prakash, a partner at Accel, Sanjay Nayar, founder and chairman of Sorin Investments, and Archana Jahagirdar, managing partner at Rukam Capital.
“Today, India is the third largest startup ecosystem in the world…and the goal, as laid by the minister, is to make it the largest startup ecosystem in the world. We are going to have startups from different states and districts in India, and also a bit of an international touch. The whole Mahakumbh has been broken into 10 verticals…from climate and D2C to B2B and SaaS,” Nayar, who is also the former CEO of KKR India, said.
Meanwhile, the government has also launched the Bharat Startup Ecosystem Registry to establish a single-platform database of startups, investors, incubators, and other stakeholders.
“Today, the Indian startup is growing on all fronts with tremendous support from enablers across the country. To match the pace of the ecosystem, we are unveiling the Bharat Startup Ecosystem Registry. We should have data-supported figures of the entire ecosystem and the aim is to unify all stakeholders under a cohesive framework for seamless coordination and facilitating networking opportunities,” said Sanjiv, joint secretary, department for promotion of industry and internal trade.
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