Nearly 45% of Mumbai’s soonicorns and unicorns are profitable, says TEAM report

Nearly 45% of Mumbai’s soonicorns and unicorns are profitable, says TEAM report

Over 45 percent of Mumbai’s soonicorn and unicorn startups are profitable and the city’s startups have created more than 10,000 engineering jobs giving the nation’s startup hub Bengaluru a strong competition, stated a report released by the Tech Entrepreneurs Association of Mumbai (TEAM) in collaboration with McKinsey as the knowledge partner.

The TEAM members include prominent startup founders such as Dream 11 co-founder Harsh Jain, Gupshup co-founder Beerud Sheth, Haptik’s co-founder Aakrit Vaish, UpGrad co-founder Mayank Kumar, The Good Glamm Group co-founder Naiyya Saggi, among many others.

The report that released at the Mumbai Tech Week on February 28, also highlighted that Mumbai startups contributed around 10-12 percent to the city’s GDP.

There are more than 65 soonicorns and unicorns in Mumbai, with a cumulative valuation is over $60 billion.

The industry association also played on the name of Mumbai calling it ‘MumbAI’ – the city it believes will spearhead the ongoing AI revolution with its businesses and startups. Over $500 million annual spending in AI is coming from Mumbai-based companies, accounting for approximately 20% if India’s AI investments, the report said.

Speaking to the media at the event, Aakrit Vaish, Co-founder of Haptik said, “AI is going to be like electricity and the internet. It’s the industries that will use AI to transform itself. All the industries including retail, investments, financial services, entertainment, pharma – they all sit here in Mumbai. So the greatest application is bound to happen in Mumbai.”

“There at least eight if not 10 AI born companies that are headquartered in Mumbai, which are not only the largest in India, but around the world. And we don’t hear about them. They now became popular because of the AI wave. In the next 10-15 years, we want to be the enablers of this ecosystem as TEAM,” he added.

AI innovation hub, Investment collective

TEAM also announced that it will be starting an AI innovation hub to support AI-first startups and ideas. This will be a part of the Navi Mumbai Airport Influence Notified Area (NAINA) that is in plans, and will be developed around the new Navi Mumbai airport.

“The vision is to build one of the world’s known startup hubs…But since it is new, we want to build it grand, AI first. It will its own flavour. It will be in Mumbai 3, closer to the new airport. It will be accessible in all shape and form. Hopefully, we’ll also have housing there close by so that startups could access that easily,” Vaish said.

This will be inside the Innovation City in works by the Maharashtra government, which Vaish expects will be up and running in minimum two years.

TEAM launched an investment collective too called TEAM Angels, wherein the association’s startup founders will pool capital to invest in Mumbai-based early stage startups.

The initiative will provide capital, mentorship, and access to industry networks to backing Mumbai’s brightest early-stage startups. This will be headquartered in Innovation City that is planned across 300 acres of land in Navi Mumbai.

Vaish said that these investments will happen at the idea stages, pre-seed and early stages of startups. The cheque sizes will vary from Rs 50-75 lakhs to Rs 5-6 crores through equity, debt, convertible debt to name a few.

From Rs 50-75 lakhs to Rs 5-6 crores. This is for the earliest stage of startups – idea stage, pre-seed, early stages etc.

MumbAI 2035 vision

In the report, TEAM chalked its vision for Mumbai in 2035. It sees Mumbai spearheading AI adoption and infrastructure development driving $6 billion in AI spends across companies by 2035. By then, Mumbai will have over 100 unicorns, more than 80% of them profitable.

TEAM estimated startups will contribute 15% to the city’s GDP, and raise $140 billion in funds with a tech talent pool of over 2 million by 2035.

Also read: Maha govt to focus on tech, affordability and M-Hub to nurture start-ups: Devendra Fadnavis