BENGALURU: If you take a walk on the streets of HSR Layout, Koramangala or Indiranagar, it is likely that every second or third door you knock on, would welcome you to a startup office. In fact, startup geeks on social media call the triad, the Bermuda triangle of unicorns in Bengaluru.
While Bengaluru enjoyed the ‘startup capital’ status until recently, a post on Twitter led to a startup face-off between Hyderabad and Bengaluru when a user shared that inspite of startups in HSR/Koramangala generating billions of dollars in taxes, the city has crumbling infrastructure. To which KT Rama Rao, IT minister of Telangana, replied by welcoming startups with open arms to Hyderabad which he claims has better infrastructure. While some feel this is a reflection of a healthy federalism and competition, others feel Bengaluru needs some serious infrastructure inspection.
Jayanti Bhattacharya, co-founder of Indian Hemp and Co., points to the lack of proper road infrastructure and skyrocketing real estate prices to be an impediment to the growth of startups here. “It is true that Bengaluru is the startup hub of India, but the ground realities suggest otherwise. Startups hardly get enough grants from the state government and the road infrastructure just makes it difficult to have our business meetings on time. Real estate is expensive and finding commercial spaces is hard,” she says, adding, “We are incubated with IIMB and for me to get there from Indiranagar is hard. I can’t shift my base from Bengaluru because a lot of my contacts and resources are here,” says Bhattacharya, who believes that the city needs more tech parks at accessible distances.
However, Abhinav Arora, co-founder of Scenes, believes that Bengaluru is ‘unbeatable’ when it comes to pooling in talent and Hyderabad is yet to get there. “You can start from Timbuktu or any other place, but scaling up can happen only in Bengaluru. All you need is an idea and an internet connection, the state of roads hardly affects us,” he says, adding that HSR is home to a number of unicorns and major fin tech (CRED) and e-commerce companies (Flipkart) are based in Bengaluru. “This is testimony to how Bengaluru has been conducive for the companies to grow,” says Arora.
Business leaders and entrepreneurs should be the ones coming forward and voicing their concerns against poor roads, storm water drain problems and other civic issues, feels Gotama Gowda, founder of Open App. Agrees, Garv Singhal, co-founder of Farmerr, who feels that there is inefficiency in infrastructure and Bengaluru needs an introspection in that aspect. However, he adds, “The work culture in Bengaluru is far more efficient and easy-going which makes it conducive. Networking, connecting with stakeholders and the right talent is easier here considering that big tech giants are based in the city.”
Why Bengaluru?
Talent Pool
Ease of scaling
Weather
Why not Bengaluru?
Poor infrastructure
High real-estate cost
Lack of govt support