Pune emerges as next big destination for tech start-ups: NASSCOM

MUMBAI, INDIA: After shortlisting 332 applications for Angel Funding and Acceleration under its recently launched '10,000 start-ups' initiative, National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) today organized Startup Pitch Sessions where Entrepreneurs pitched their start-ups to more than 20 Angel Investors and Accelerators under one roof.

NASSCOM also released insights on the tech entrepreneurial landscape based on the 4000 applications that it received for Angel Funding and Acceleration under the 10,000 Start-ups program.

On this occasion, Rajiv Vaishnav, VP, NASSCOM said: "We are organizing Pitch Sessions around the country where we aim to provide selected start-ups an unprecedented opportunity to pitch to multiple angel investors and accelerators on a single platform."

Speaking about the Mumbai Tech start-up ecosystem, he said, "Despite of a much more vibrant investing landscape, Mumbai ranks as a distant third behind Bangalore (23 per cent) and Delhi NCR (20 per cent) in terms of the number of applications."

"Pune on the other hand, is emerging as a strong contender by contributing with 6 per cent application and 8 per cent start-ups from Pune making it in the shortlists," he added.

The application procedure revealed some interesting insights about the emerging tech entrepreneurship landscape in Mumbai.

Out of the total applications received from Mumbai, about 22 per cent start-ups aimed at providing solutions pertaining to education and skill development followed with 21 per cent providing solutions in Retail.

Although Mumbai is known as the national media hub, only 12 per cent applications aimed to solve problems in media which is even below the national average of 15 per cent.

With reference to the demographics of the applicants, about 63 per cent applications came from applicants under the age of 30 and about 12 per cent applicants were women.

From a technology point of view, a whopping 60 per cent of the applications came for web/internet start-ups, followed by mobile start-ups occupying a share of 24 per cent. Applications from Cloud and Big Data were at 14 per cent and 13 per cent respectively.

NASSCOM had commenced the 10,000 Start-ups program with the support of Google, Kotak, Microsoft and Verisign.