Capitalising the Indian Techade

The Indian Techade ahead is an exciting opportunity with the economy predicted to grow 8x over the next 2 decades.

This presents a golden period for new companies to be built out in various domains — be it consumer tech, deep tech, climate, or global SaaS companies.

We hosted Kalaari Capital‘s India Alpha Summit in San Francisco a few weeks ago to discuss this theme. Interested in this space? Have a look at our learnings encapsulated below:

Arvind Gupta‘s talk underscored India’s rise as a key investment hub for the next decade. He emphasized the role of the India Stack in driving market inclusivity and boosting the digital economy, alongside policy reforms like the GST and substantial investments in infrastructure, including highways and airports, that set the stage for economic growth. Institutions like the National Fund of Funds are crucial in leveraging these platforms for rapid value creation, with over INR 20,000Cr directed towards startup capital infusion, marking an optimal time for investment opportunities.

Bringing his deep understanding of economic drivers, Prof. Krishnamurthy V Subramanian explained the foundational pillars for rapid economic growth. His detailed model walkthrough led to his prediction that India could become a $55T economy by 2047, further validating our excitement for India’s potential in the upcoming decade!

Vani Kola‘s fireside with Mukesh Bansal and Gaurav Singh Kushwaha focused on unraveling their journey in building two of the most loved Indian consumer brands of the past decade with Curefit – house of cult and BlueStone. Companies that can clearly define their right to win and leverage technology can create sustainable brands and compound the value as they scale their product. And once these companies do break out, the potential for shareholder value to compound as the brand scales is tremendous.

Krishna Kumar‘s journey in building and scaling Simplilearn was an incredible insight into an EdTech platform. Krishna’s focus on continuously understanding consumers and understanding avenues for organic and sustainable growth are a great framework for young founders. His perspective on India’s large population being its strongest opportunity if skilled and trained efficiently signified the large EdTech opportunity in India.

Abhinav Shashank’s insights on scaling Innovaccer focused on leveraging healthcare industry gaps for digital-first products to enhance customer experiences. His discussion with Karan Sharma highlighted the significant opportunities for Indian startups to establish global companies in healthcare and biosciences.

Zocket and Skit.ai founders Sourabh Gupta and Karthik Venkateswaran’s chat with MR Rangaswami focused on the potential of global SaaS companies to be built in India. While India also provides a sizable market to find PMF, it also provides a great centre to build companies that can compete on both quality and cost in global markets.

Jason Kwon’s fireside with Aakrit Vaish highlighted India’s importance as a market for OpenAI as well as the opportunity for the immense talent pool in India to build vertical first AI solutions, where the nuances of proprietary data and industry context can create a big difference and provide startups with the right to win the market.

Anirudh Sharma and Bhaktha Keshavachar emphasized the potential for core IP-led companies emerging from India. Anirudh at Digantara is building a space situational awareness platform on top of data that would be a global first and open space as a fourth frontier. Bhaktha brought out the urgency to bring in sustainable rare earth-free technologies to address the climate change challenge that we face and spoke about the rare earth-free motor technologies that are being built at Chara Technologies

The India Alpha summit was a great evening of incredible leaders – or more aptly alphas, coming together to create the blueprint and unravel the India Techade and what lies ahead.

We have always believed in the India opportunity, which Kalaari has pursued since 2006. The energy and optimism at the India Alpha Summit show that the coming decade will see India’s Techade produce global companies of the future.