BENGALURU: Many parts of the IT capital of India, Bengaluru, which is home to 39 unicorns and top IT firms such as Infosys and Wipro, have been flooded forcing IT employees and start-ups to work from home. IT companies such as Mindtree and e-commerce giant Flipkart have asked their employees to work from home.
While both Wipro and TCS said they are closely monitoring the situation, Mindtree and Flipkart said their employees are working from home till September 9. Many IT companies are slowly calling their employees back to the office and with the recent flooding, work from home is back for the majority of companies and start-ups.
Many start-up founders took to Twitter and spoke about their struggles in the past two days. Jitendra Gupta, founder of fintech start-up Jupiter said, "How do we call this city liveable by any standard? Absolutely no infra in the city. Still a village!"
Unacademy CEO Gaurav Munjal said his family and pet have been evacuated on a tractor from their society that has been submerged.
Of the other parts, Outer Ring Road, Sarjapura Road and Bellandur are the worst affected and these areas are home to numerous start-ups and IT companies. Outer Ring Road Companies Association (ORRCA), which represents companies on the ORR stretch, estimates that over half a million professionals are employed along the ORR. Also, ORR IT generates revenue of $22 billion per annum, which is 32% of Bengaluru's revenue.
Flooding on ORR on August 30 alone has led to a loss of Rs 225 crore, ORRCA said. "ORR and other Peripheral areas where most start-ups are located continue to experience rapid expansion. As a result, they are facing major challenges across a range of sectors impacting the city's liveability, with traffic and urban flooding as critical challenges," Prashanth Prakash, Partner at Accel, a VC firm, told TNIE.
He added that the thriving start-up ecosystem can help support strategies to create a climate-resilient Bengaluru rooted in the principles of sustainable long-term development.
Bengaluru is among the top 15 Global Ecosystems in funding and according to Global Startup Ecosystem Report (GSER), Bengaluru's ecosystem saw eight $50 million+ exits. The IT capital's ecosystem value (2019H2-2021) is $105 billion when compared to the global average of $28.6 billion. There are over 72,000 start-ups in India, and of the total Bengaluru has nearly 20,000.
Many start-ups said they are now working from home but power disruption is quite a big issue. Kaustubh Padakannaya, co-founder of Pyse, a fintech start-up said the disordered infrastructure in the city is causing troubles for commuters but teams working for start-ups are equipped to go remote and they function with little to no disruption.