IIT Super Guys: Red Hot Tech Entrepreneurs in India are mostly IITians

Most of the technology startups in India have been founded by IIT alumni. In fact, as many as 5 of the 7 tech startups to enter the ‘Unicorn’ club (valued over $1 billion of 6,400 crore rupees) have been founded by IITians. Some of the most notable upcoming tech entrepreneurs in the country (who are IIT graduates) are:

• Anikit Bhati and Bhavish Aggarwal from IIT Bombay – founded Ola
• Binny and Sachin Bansal from IIT Delhi – founded Flipkart
• Bipin Preet Singh from IIT Delhi – founded MobiKwik
• Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah from IIT Delhi founded Zomato
• Rahul Yadav and 11 other graduates from IIT Bombay – founded Housing
• Rohit Bansal from IIT Delhi founded Snapdeal
• Sanjay Sethi from IIT Varanasi founded Shopclues

Laxman Papineni, a non-IITian and a co-founder of Hyderabad-based startup AppVirality, said, “It is true that the IIT tag does wonders for a startup – especially in the initial stages. Investors and incubators tend to trust IITians more while non-IITians have to prove themselves first to win a similar confidence level from them.”

Ritesh Bangalani, who is from IIT Delhi and one of the partners at Helion Ventures, share, “There are three things that work in favour of the IITians:

• Presence of Role Models,
• Access to a strong network of IIT alumni, and
• Confidence of getting a job easily in case the venture fails. This increases their risk taking appetite.”

There are other things too that place IITians in a strong position if they choose to be a tech entrepreneur:

• Best of the best engineers: IITs are highly selective. The tough selection process of JEE Main and JEE Advanced leads to a rigorous programme that produce top-quality engineers. The strong engineering pedigree comes in quite handy if you want to start a technology-based venture.
• Bonding with fellow IITians: Besides, being at one of the premium students, you have access to a network of students who are almost as bright, dedicated and hard-working as you are. So, it a great place to attract the right kind of talent for your startup. Whenever you need to hire someone, you just connect up with your friends and find the right person. Once you know a potential candidate is from an IIT, you automatically are sure about the quality of their skills.
• Track Record of IIT Alumni: A 2013 study by research firm PitchBook revealed that the IITs constituted the only non-US college brand whose alumni founded startups that raised venture capital funding between 2010 and 2013. In fact, IIT alumni founded 77 startups that had raised VC money.
• No dearth of Mentors: IIT Kharagpur was set up in 1951. It means you have access to mentors with years of technical and global experience. People like Vinod Khosla, who co-founded Sun Microsystems, is an IIT Delhi alumnus. Other institutes like BITS Pilani, NITs or DTU that are considered ‘elite’ do have as strong a history or alumni network as IITs.

Investors agree that it is easier to decide to invest in a startup if at least one of the team members is from an IIT. Angel investor Sharad Sharma says, “IITs are one of the very few colleges in India that offer exposure to entrepreneurship to their students. IIT Bombay, for example, has several professors who have become entrepreneurs in their own right. The ecosystem of IITs to nurture entrepreneurs certainly proves to be an advantage of someone who wants to go down that path.”