In India, 85% of production assets are yet to be connected. This leads to huge opportunities for India.
India’s IoT opportunity stands at $70 bn by 2025 and according to AT Kearney, artificial intelligence and machine learning in India is set for a $32 bn market.
“The present production capacity of advanced robots stands at just 10% while we can expect a rise of 45% by 2030,” mentioned Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog while delivering his keynote at 12th IAMAI India Digital Summit.
He further added, “We can expect more than 25 unicorns by 2022. We need to keep focusing on our problems, and not ape the West.”
The industry experts share a similar confidence.
NITI Aayog Is Optimistic
“We don’t have too many unicorns at this moment. But, the potential of startups becoming a unicorn in the next 3-4 years is very high. Largely, it would be an investment-driven scenario. If they are doing the right thing, no one can stop them from becoming unicorns” Shalil Gupta, Associate VP – Insights and Consulting, IDC
25 unicorns sounds achievable considering the present scenario in the fintech space and the startups working on solving India problems. In fact, investors are also looking at investing in companies who are working towards solving the India problems. Both knowledge shift and investors focus are moving towards middle India right now, which is essentially a 300-500 mn consumers rich market” said Jayanth Kolla, Founder and Partner, Convergence Catalyst
“The sentiment is definitely positive. However, the ground reality is not the reflection of the sentiment. By and large, there is positivity in the ecosystem but we also need to keep moving faster” said Apalak Ghosh, Head – Industry Consulting Group, Cybermedia Research
Amitabh Kant reiterated the fact that these future unicorns are not only going to cater the 1 billion people in India, but also the next 7 billion global population who are moving from poverty to middle class
Need Government Support For The Startup Ecosystem
However, ‘Access to Market’ sounds difficult in the present context.
“Government should facilitate the startups with ‘Access to market’. This is missing presently. If implemented properly, this will ensure a competitive advantage to the startup ecosystem. For example, startup preference in government and PSUs tenders, enable access to international markets etc.” said Gupta.
The reality has started showing us the ray of positivity.
“We have 10 startups under incubation as of now, generated 9 IPs and these startups already generated more than Rs 8 crores of business. We will have 5 startups in the next 5 years who will emerge as Unicorns which will also become global companies” said Sanjeev Chopra, CEO, Electropreneur Park.
Electropreneur Park is a joint initiative by India Electronics and Semiconductor Association (IESA) and Software Technology Park of India (STPI), aimed at supporting 50 early stage startups over 5 years.