Having spent a couple of years clocking airline miles as a consultant in New York and London, Zishaan Hayath, returned to India to start something of his own. Hayath picked Powai, an eastern suburb of Mumbai, hired a few fresh graduates from his alma mater IIT-Bombay (IIT-B) and began Toppr.com, an online preparation portal for engineering exams, from his spiffy looking apartment earlier this year. The 32-year-old is also part of Powai Lake Ventures, a group of angel investors who focus on startups from the area.
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.
Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/Welcome-to-Powai-Valley-Indias-new-start-up-hub/articleshow/29126534.cms
