Start-Ups

Bengaluru: Akash Sinha has always had the proverbial entrepreneurial itch. From trying to build a social network for workplaces to running a portal that would match entrance exam scores with the qualifying institutions during his undergraduation, he has dabbled a fair bit into starting up to know how it works. “It’s always been about looking at the problems in the market and trying to solve them; that’s what you do as an entrepreneur,” he says. Sinha is now the co-founder and chief executive officer of Cashfree, a payments and banking…

Tamil Nadu: The Tamil Nadu Startup Policy was launched only in 2019 despite successful startups being around for over a decade. With small-scale networking events and local groups, TN startups are getting the right support system. Organisations such as Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India, Young Entrepreneur School and others are enabling newer founders. Tamil Nadu was noted as an emerging state in DPIIT’s Startup Ranking 2018. Since then, a lot has changed in the ecosystem — for one the Tamil Nadu government launched its state startup policy last year to back…

India is forecasted to become the fourth-largest market for EVs by 2040. In the past couple of years, the country has observed a behemoth of electric vehicle startups majorly targeting the shared mobility segment. Which electric vehicle startups have the potential to outshine the competition in 2020? The Startup Watchlist, an annual series in which we list the top startups to watch out for in 2020 from industries such as agritech, deeptech, logistics, healthtech, edtech and more. Explore all the stories from the ‘Startup Watchlist’ 2020 series here. When 16-year-old…

BENGALURU: A large number of early to mid-stage startups are unlikely to be able to qualify for the cabinet approved Rs 3 lakh crore emergency credit line even when they are registered as an MSME. According to entrepreneurs and investors, a startup needs to have existing debt on its books to qualify for this loan facility from the government. Venture-debt, a popular instrument used by startups, and shareholder loans, won’t make the cut as debt for startups. Profitability is another angle that is making startups anxious about their chances to…

The COVID-19 pandemic will have a far-reaching and long-lasting impact on the global economy. Even though lockdown restricts have now been eased in several countries, financial markets are likely to take a long time to recover from the covid-19-triggered crisis. As reported by the International Monetary Fund, this is the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, projecting a humongous loss worth $9 trillion in global gross domestic product over the next 2-years. These are challenging times for businesses, even more so for startups that operate with razor-thin margins. Besides…

The world is in a state of unprecedented tumult. Businesses and governments around the globe have been shaken to their cores by the Covid-19. This crisis has forced companies to ask their employees to work from home for their safety and improved productivity. 1. Flexibility for the way people work Around the world, the majority of large corporations still operate on inflexible, conservative management structures that care more about how long people are in the office than how productive they can be. The fear of being wrong or arriving late,…