Lastly, both with crypto and fiat money, we will see a new format of games pick up in India. We might also see local VC funds specializing in crypto. I think there will be more specialized crypto funds coming up. Investors will require deep knowledge if they want to contribute meaningfully as backers of crypto startups. Similarly, India-to-global companies, as a category, are also exciting.Ĭrypto will remain front and center. Prosumers will not build just for India, but for the global audience. I think more and more people will have side income. Kr: What themes are you excited about for 2022? Going forward, the only way to succeed as an investor is to have a lot of depth and experience in whatever you pick up. Startup founders are now thinking beyond capital and are focused on what their investors bring to the table. A lot of funds are now building operational bandwidth and recruiting people with functional expertise so that they can support these early-stage startups. When you make seed and pre-seed investments, you need to be more hands-on, as these companies need more support. Many VCs launched separate early-stage funds or started programs to back new startups. HK: With more liquidity in the market, larger funds were raised.
Kr: How did the VC community in India evolve this year? Usually, it is the growth stage and pre-IPO companies that think about gender equality. But today we are seeing more and more early-stage consumer companies expanding globally.Īs women empowerment became a central theme in the startup ecosystem, more early-stage startup founders became conscious of gender balance. Zomato, Ola, Byju’s, and Oyo are examples. Many of them are using their capital smartly.īefore the pandemic, companies would think about global expansion at later stages. They understand whatever works for urban India will likely work for a global audience. HK: Many startup founders started building global companies, partly because they realized they could have remote teams, and partly because they have sufficient funds. Kr: How do you think local startup founders’ mindset changed in the past year? Insights Unexpected things that defined Indian startup ecosystem in 2021 | KrASIA Year in Review As more companies go public, the Indian venture ecosystem will become even more attractive for global investors. For many years, the biggest question is whether we are going to see exits in the country. Lastly, the number of companies that have gone public and are lined up to go public is phenomenal for the startup ecosystem. That also led to more people starting businesses because additional capital was available at early stages.
With the influx of growth-stage capital, many venture funds that were Series A investors started writing seed and pre-seed checks, because check sizes grew. As a result, many startups became unicorns in a short time frame. Usually, less capital is available for Series B and Series C startups, but that changed completely in 2021. A huge amount of capital flowed into the country because of a drop in interest rates in the US. Harsha Kumar (HK): We saw a large number of companies start this year as COVID-19 gave people time to sit at home and think about what they wanted to do with their careers. KrASIA (Kr): How did the Indian startup ecosystem change in 2021?
The following interview has been edited and consolidated for brevity and clarity. She believes that in 2022, large volumes of capital will continue to flow into the country, check sizes will become larger, and more startup IPOs will take place. Kumar spoke to KrASIA about India’s changing startup ecosystem as a deluge of VC funding sloshes through the country. Then, in 2016, she refocused and became a venture capitalist. While Kumar began her career as a techie in the mid-2000s, she worked for several startups, including cab-hailing giant Ola, where she shaped their products. Harsha Kumar, partner at Lightspeed India Partners, which invests in early and growth-stage technology companies in India and Southeast Asia, started coding when she was 13 years old.