Thanks to the combination of an engineering school that is as brutally difficult to get into as any in the world, Mumbai's famed spirit of 'dhanda', and relatively low rentals, a new breed of risk-taking, entrepreneurial talent is turning Powai- which once lay sleepily around a picturesque lake - into India's new hotspot for start-ups. It already houses more than 50 start-ups, and there are many others lining up to enter. (In a nod to its emergence as a business hotspot, a bunch of new upmarket pubs and restaurants have sprung up.) While some of these ventures are bootstrapping, others are flush with funds but together they fuel an ecosystem which, venture capitalists say could, possibly be India's answer to Silicon Valley and London's Silicon Roundabout.
What is brewing in PowaiValley, a moniker given by VCs, is unlike Bangalore and the NCR, largely because most of the start-ups in Powai are in the consumer space whether it's internet or mobile. Also, the Mumbai suburb is supported by talent coming from IIT-B, giving it an edge over other cities, in the long run.
Avnish Bajaj, co-founder & MD of the US-based VC firm Matrix Partners India, says this mirrors what happened in the 80s and 90s in Silicon Valley. "There was Stanford, there was Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) and then VCs started flocking to the Valley seeing the number of start-ups that were coming up there. Then a second hub got created in Boston as it had Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). I see the beginning of a trend here. Powai could be the start-up centre for India feeding into the talent coming out of IIT-B."
While internationally cities such as Dublin, Tel Aviv and Berlin have become start-up hotbeds, the Indian entrepreneurial ecosystem has not mushroomed around one city alone. Many tech and outsourcing ventures have chosen the southern city of Bangalore due to an abundance of engineering talent there. In recent years, internet and mobile-related companies have also made the National Capital Region, especially Gurgaon, their home.
Vellvette.com, which was recently rechristened Fabbag.com, a subscription-based e-commerce venture dealing with beauty products, came up in Powai earlier this year. Vineeta Singh and Kaushik Mukherjee, the 31-year-old co-founders, say Powai in particular, and Mumbai in general, worked for them because it is comparatively safer for its largely female workforce, which tends to work late in the night.
IIT-B is, of course, the most important reason. First-generation entrepreneurs who have gone back to their alma mater to hire find that young students lap up their offers. One of the start-ups that stirred up the campus with its meteoric rise over the last year is Housing.com, which picked up 40 IITians from the Bombay campus this hiring season. "Great companies are built with the help of talented people, and I believe it is this access which will make more start-ups opt for Powai," says Advitiya Sharma, one of the 12 founders of the start-up.
However, unlike international start-up hubs which were well planned, Powai is happening more by chance. Sasha Mirchandani, managing partner of VC firm Kae Capital and co-founder Mumbai Angels, says this cluster effect will hopefully gain critical mass and VC firms will look to shift to this area. Mirchandani has invested in three start-ups from the Powaiarea--- Squeakee.com, a technology company Shopsense, and Palet.ly, a colour theme focussed e-commerce website.
What also works for Powai is the sense of familiarity it offers IIT-B grads along with a plethora of networking opportunities. The area, says Prabhkiran Singh, co-founder of Bewakoof.com, an online apparel and accessories brand born inPowai, is a perfect setting for start-ups because of the buzz that it has. "The cafes are like meeting and networking rooms. Talent from IIT is readily available even if you want to hire interns," says Singh, an IIT-B alumnus who recently moved his manufacturing to an industrial estate in Ghatkopar, but spends most of his time in Powai meeting friends from other start-ups, investors and prospective employees.
Similarly, Chef's Basket, a ready-to-cook packaged food brand, started by Nipun Katyal, Manish Tirthani and Varun Jhawar, from IIT-B is headquartered in Vikhroli, a stone's throw from Powai. "Having our office here helps us stay in touch with our alma mater."
While Powai has seen a steady stream of new start-ups come up over the past couple of years, a few ventures have chosen to move out of the area. Ola Cabs, a taxi aggregating service founded three years back by two IIT-B alumni Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati in Powai, shifted its headquarter to Bangalore. Aggarwal, 27, says the Powai ecosystem has since improved. "It was tough because Bangalore seemed to attract most of the talent. That's changing and fast-growing start-ups can sustain themselves in Powai," he says, adding that Ola would have stayed on inPowai had it started operations now.
Incubated by IIT-Bombay's Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Purple Squirrel's founder Aditya Gandhi says being in the area has given him access to all that a start-up needs to survive. "It's the entire ecosystem which has worked for us," he says. Purple Squirrel allows students to get professional experience before they graduate from school. Although most IITs have tried to create an ecosystem with entrepreneurial cells on campus, the scale is much larger in Powai because it is not artificially created, says an investor. Call it network effect.
"There is clearly an X factor about Powai but we need to watch how things will play out," says Matrix India's Bajaj, an IIT-Kanpur and Harvard Business School graduate, who co-founded Bazee.com in the 1990s later selling it to Ebay. After all, many have tried to clone the success of Silicon Valley, the strip of land from San Francisco to San Jose that has come to symbolize all that is innovative in the world, but few have succeeded. For now, though, the investor community has its eyes set on spotting the next big idea emanating from this fledgling start-up hotbed.
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