6 ms·

Something interesting about the startup scene in India is how the center of gravity has shifted over the last 10 years from Bangalore / Hyderabad to New Delhi.

Something interesting about the startup scene in India is how the center of gravity has shifted over the last 10 years from Bangalore / Hyderabad to New Delhi. Elad Gil's recent post mentions this: http://blog.eladgil.com/2020/10/unicorn-market-cap-industry-towns-2020.html http://blog.eladgil.com/2020/10/unicorn-market-cap-industry-... with Bangalore having 8 unicorns vs Delhi's 11. "While Bangalore continues to thrive, some point to bad governance locally (traffic, high rents, passive government) as one of the reasons it is not the only center. There are undoubtedly other reasons, but it is worth thinking about relative to San Francisco longer term."

Jedd 6y ago
> ... Bangalore having 8 unicorns vs Delhi's 11. How much of that is related to government influence (the effectiveness of pushing Bangalore & Hydrabad to be tech centers)? I note that Bangalore's population is 8m, while Delhi is 21m. If it was 'unicorns per population' then you'd naively expect a ratio of 8:21, not 8:11.
- mav3rick 6y ago
  Delhi has 4 really good engineering schools as well (IIT and IIIT-Delhi are world class, DCE/DTU and NSIT / NSUT have equally smart kids). In my experience they aren't going for big company jobs now but are more geared towards joining smaller firms or starting something of their own. Co-working space is also a big thing there. Transport isn't as bad as Bangalore. Hope the air is better and women's safety increases as well. The food is the best in India - my biased take :)
  - redis_mlc 6y ago
    > Delhi has 4 really good engineering schools as well IIT has an engineering faculty, but is not 100% eng. That's a common misconception in the US.
    - mav3rick 6y ago
      It's predominantly known for the JEE and it's engineering program. Yes there are other programs.
- RhodoYolo 6y ago
  Holy crap - I forget sometimes how many people are in India. Compare those two numbers to LA's 4M people and you start to remember how small America is population wise. With the way that tech is going AKA Eyeballs/ads/consumerism equals money, the tech scene in India is going to be much bigger than the US in the future.
  - paxys 6y ago
    From a global viewpoint America is also massive. India and China are just outliers. There are entire nations with smaller populations than some neighborhoods in New York or Los Angeles.
  - cannaceo 6y ago
    LA is 12MM people (LA county).
    - njanirudh 6y ago
      Which is not than the population of Belgium[1] 1.https://www.google.com/search?q=population+of+Belgium&oq=population+of+Belgium&aqs=chrome..69i57.3034j0j4&client=ms-unknown&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=population+of+Belgium&oq=pop...
  - maneesh 6y ago
    Out of 190+ countries, America is in 3rd place for largest in the world by population with 330MM people. [0] And if America, overnight, produced 1 billion more people? It would still be in 3rd place. [0] https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/population-by-country/ https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/population-by...
    - redis_mlc 6y ago
      India will likely tie China in population after the current famine in China - expecting around 200 million casualties in the next year.
  - thrwoe234343 6y ago
phendrenad2 6y ago
As someone who's never been to India, when someone says "Bangalore" I think "tech hub" and when someone says "New Delhi" I think "Bollywood". Do people feel a pull toward New Delhi the way people feel a pull toward NYC here in the US?
- mlboss 6y ago
  Bollywood == Mumbai
- vm 6y ago
  While I can't speak for Delhi, Mumbai is closer to the "NY of India" and attracts young people in the same way
  - HJain13 6y ago
    If we are going to compare cities Mumbai == LA (Film Industries) Delhi == NY (Not much to support this but the Rude people stereotype)
    - niyaven 6y ago
      Not really, the financial center of India is Mumbai. Bombay Stock Exchance is in Mumbai, as its name implies. You could say the Wall Street of India is in Mumbai. Anyway, I'm not sure it would make sense to make these comparisons.
    - jogjayr 6y ago
      Nah. Mumbai has stock exchanges (BSE and NSE), banks and financial institutions, ports, the TV, music, and fashion industries. It's far more similar to NYC than New Delhi is.
- akchin 6y ago
  Delhi is DC - capital of the country, lots of politicians and bureaucrats. Also spread out quite a bit and with lots of impressive historical and government buildings. Mumbai is LA and NYC sort of combined - entertainment capital (Bollywood) and financial capital (main stock exchange, banks, Dalal street (equivalent of Wall Street). Also like NYC, cramped with lots of skyscrapers.
hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
I've been to both Delhi (more accurately, Gurgaon) and Bangalore on business assignments. I don't mean to sound unfairly harsh, but it's difficult for me to imagine a city that basically feels like it's constantly trying to kill you become a center of startup activity, for the simple reason that once one becomes wealthy enough to invest in startups one would want to leave the city for a better quality of life. The air quality and pollution problems in Delhi are like nothing I have ever experienced. When I was there (granted, it was exceptionally poor air quality even for Delhi at that time) I could not see the sun at midday due to the smog - I couldn't see more than 100 feet due to the smog. I felt like Blade Runner could have been filmed in Gurgaon - a post apocalyptic world with giant buildings but a dire lack of accessible green space. Even if there were much green space, I couldn't spend much time outside because every breath tasted like acrid metal. I'm not saying San Francisco and Silicon Valley are some utopias either - they obviously have a slew of social ills (often debated on HN). But I have never realized how much I have taken for granted being able to breath clean air, and I really hope Delhi is able to clean up its pollution problems, but until it does I can't see it becoming a truly globally competitive startup center.
- umeshunni 6y ago
  I think Elad's point wasn't that Delhi will become a global startup center, but that it became India's startup center from behind since the original leader (Bangalore) suffered from poor governance over the last 15 years. The parallel to the US could be that, over the next 10-20 years, NYC (or some other new hub) overtakes the Bay Area / SF for similar reasons.
  - radicaldreamer 6y ago
    Based on covid mortality, it’s arguable that Silicon Valley is better governed than people give it credit for. Not only has mass death been avoided so far in the Bay Area (compared to the situation in New York metro area earlier this year), California has been battling multiple emergencies during at the same time (see the extraordinary fire season this year)
    - deleted 6y ago
kartickv 6y ago
8 vs 11 is too small a sample size to say either way. It may very well be that a couple of these startups succeeded due to their business model / luck / sector / whatever which wouldn't apply to the next startup. If it were 0 vs 11, that would mean something, but 8 vs 11 is too close. Instead of counting unicorns, we should count the number of successful exits, such as acquisitions. Or, second best, the number of companies that reached (say) series C funding.

Jedd 6y ago

> ... Bangalore having 8 unicorns vs Delhi's 11. How much of that is related to government influence (the effectiveness of pushing Bangalore & Hydrabad to be tech centers)? I note that Bangalore's population is 8m, while Delhi is 21m. If it was 'unicorns per population' then you'd naively expect a ratio of 8:21, not 8:11.

mav3rick 6y ago
Delhi has 4 really good engineering schools as well (IIT and IIIT-Delhi are world class, DCE/DTU and NSIT / NSUT have equally smart kids). In my experience they aren't going for big company jobs now but are more geared towards joining smaller firms or starting something of their own. Co-working space is also a big thing there. Transport isn't as bad as Bangalore. Hope the air is better and women's safety increases as well. The food is the best in India - my biased take :)
- redis_mlc 6y ago
  > Delhi has 4 really good engineering schools as well IIT has an engineering faculty, but is not 100% eng. That's a common misconception in the US.
  - mav3rick 6y ago
    It's predominantly known for the JEE and it's engineering program. Yes there are other programs.
RhodoYolo 6y ago
Holy crap - I forget sometimes how many people are in India. Compare those two numbers to LA's 4M people and you start to remember how small America is population wise. With the way that tech is going AKA Eyeballs/ads/consumerism equals money, the tech scene in India is going to be much bigger than the US in the future.
- paxys 6y ago
  From a global viewpoint America is also massive. India and China are just outliers. There are entire nations with smaller populations than some neighborhoods in New York or Los Angeles.
- cannaceo 6y ago
  LA is 12MM people (LA county).
  - njanirudh 6y ago
    Which is not than the population of Belgium[1] 1.https://www.google.com/search?q=population+of+Belgium&oq=population+of+Belgium&aqs=chrome..69i57.3034j0j4&client=ms-unknown&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=population+of+Belgium&oq=pop...
- maneesh 6y ago
  Out of 190+ countries, America is in 3rd place for largest in the world by population with 330MM people. [0] And if America, overnight, produced 1 billion more people? It would still be in 3rd place. [0] https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/population-by-country/ https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/population-by...
  - redis_mlc 6y ago
    India will likely tie China in population after the current famine in China - expecting around 200 million casualties in the next year.
- thrwoe234343 6y ago

phendrenad2 6y ago

As someone who's never been to India, when someone says "Bangalore" I think "tech hub" and when someone says "New Delhi" I think "Bollywood". Do people feel a pull toward New Delhi the way people feel a pull toward NYC here in the US?

mlboss 6y ago
Bollywood == Mumbai
vm 6y ago
While I can't speak for Delhi, Mumbai is closer to the "NY of India" and attracts young people in the same way
- HJain13 6y ago
  If we are going to compare cities Mumbai == LA (Film Industries) Delhi == NY (Not much to support this but the Rude people stereotype)
  - niyaven 6y ago
    Not really, the financial center of India is Mumbai. Bombay Stock Exchance is in Mumbai, as its name implies. You could say the Wall Street of India is in Mumbai. Anyway, I'm not sure it would make sense to make these comparisons.
  - jogjayr 6y ago
    Nah. Mumbai has stock exchanges (BSE and NSE), banks and financial institutions, ports, the TV, music, and fashion industries. It's far more similar to NYC than New Delhi is.
akchin 6y ago
Delhi is DC - capital of the country, lots of politicians and bureaucrats. Also spread out quite a bit and with lots of impressive historical and government buildings. Mumbai is LA and NYC sort of combined - entertainment capital (Bollywood) and financial capital (main stock exchange, banks, Dalal street (equivalent of Wall Street). Also like NYC, cramped with lots of skyscrapers.

hn_throwaway_99 6y ago

I've been to both Delhi (more accurately, Gurgaon) and Bangalore on business assignments. I don't mean to sound unfairly harsh, but it's difficult for me to imagine a city that basically feels like it's constantly trying to kill you become a center of startup activity, for the simple reason that once one becomes wealthy enough to invest in startups one would want to leave the city for a better quality of life. The air quality and pollution problems in Delhi are like nothing I have ever experienced. When I was there (granted, it was exceptionally poor air quality even for Delhi at that time) I could not see the sun at midday due to the smog - I couldn't see more than 100 feet due to the smog. I felt like Blade Runner could have been filmed in Gurgaon - a post apocalyptic world with giant buildings but a dire lack of accessible green space. Even if there were much green space, I couldn't spend much time outside because every breath tasted like acrid metal. I'm not saying San Francisco and Silicon Valley are some utopias either - they obviously have a slew of social ills (often debated on HN). But I have never realized how much I have taken for granted being able to breath clean air, and I really hope Delhi is able to clean up its pollution problems, but until it does I can't see it becoming a truly globally competitive startup center.

umeshunni 6y ago
I think Elad's point wasn't that Delhi will become a global startup center, but that it became India's startup center from behind since the original leader (Bangalore) suffered from poor governance over the last 15 years. The parallel to the US could be that, over the next 10-20 years, NYC (or some other new hub) overtakes the Bay Area / SF for similar reasons.
- radicaldreamer 6y ago
  Based on covid mortality, it’s arguable that Silicon Valley is better governed than people give it credit for. Not only has mass death been avoided so far in the Bay Area (compared to the situation in New York metro area earlier this year), California has been battling multiple emergencies during at the same time (see the extraordinary fire season this year)
  - deleted 6y ago

kartickv 6y ago

8 vs 11 is too small a sample size to say either way. It may very well be that a couple of these startups succeeded due to their business model / luck / sector / whatever which wouldn't apply to the next startup. If it were 0 vs 11, that would mean something, but 8 vs 11 is too close. Instead of counting unicorns, we should count the number of successful exits, such as acquisitions. Or, second best, the number of companies that reached (say) series C funding.