India is finally going beyond just e-commerce and cabs dominating the ecosystem.
After
nearly a decade of e-commerce and ride-hailing dominating the
ecosystem, business-to-business (B2B) startups in India are
finally having their day in the sun.
Nearly
half the firms founded in India in 2017 so far operate in the B2B
space, according to a Nov. 02 report by IT industry lobby Nasscom and
consulting firm Zinnov. In all, B2B startups now make up for around 40%
of the Indian startup ecosystem.
"The
growth of B2B startups is being driven by fintech, health tech, and B2B
enterprise products," the report said. The trend is supported by
an increase in the adoption of advanced technologies, including
analytics, artificial intelligence, internet of things, augmented
reality, and blockchain.
With such prolific growth, the B2B segment has also caught the attention of investors.
Within the B2B space, fintech startups and health tech companies are showing strong growth. In
the fintech space, digital payments and lending are expanding steadily,
alongside several new companies in insurance-tech and wealth
management.
Fintech | H1 2016 | H1 2017 |
---|---|---|
Number of startups | 275 | 360 |
Funding | $85 million | $200 million |
In
health tech, companies that offer health information management are
gaining traction, followed by new areas like anomaly detection, disease
monitoring, and telemedicine.
Health tech | H1 2016 | H1 2017 |
---|---|---|
Number of startups | 250 | 320 |
Funding | $70 million | $160 million |
So far in 2017, India has added 1,000 new startups, taking the total to over 5,000, the report said.
The
country continues to be the world's third-largest startup ecosystem
after the US and Israel, though it is catching up with the latter. India
now has 10 unicorns, in comparison to just three in Israel. And the
average valuation of unicorns here is $1.6 billion, slightly higher than
$1.2 billion in Israel.
The
total funding for Indian startups during January-June 2017 was $6.4
billion, way higher than just $2.4 billion in the corresponding period
last year. But the increase was mainly because of massive rounds raised
by e-commerce major Flipkart and digital payments firm Paytm. In April, Flipkart raised $1.4 billion from eBay, Microsoft, and Tencent. A month later, Paytm raised $1.4 billion from Japan's Softbank.