Chennai is the city with the most talented and well-skilled people in India’s startup ecosystem. Despite its status as an underdog in India’s startup ecosystem, this city has created many fantastic companies such as Freshdesk and Indix, both of which are in high demand on the global market. Although Chennai is recognised for being the home of the automotive sector, it has recently become a hotspot for SAAS (Software as a Service), attracting young and bright entrepreneurs from all walks of life. As a result, Chennai is one of the hottest marketplaces for entrepreneurs looking to start a company in a competitive but stress-free environment.
How Is Chennai Establishing Itself As A Leader In The Startup World?
Chennai is India’s fourth-largest city by population, with almost 5 million residents. It is also the country’s second-largest IT development centre, behind Bangalore, making it ideal for launching new and innovative businesses. The city is fast developing as a start-up ecosystem, having acquired a slew of accelerators and incubators, including PayPal’s incubators and Start Tank, according to The CEO Magazine. With these new prospects, Chennai is not only a wonderful site to start a business, but also a terrific place for a company to grow.
One of the reasons for the city’s growth is the recent trend in the startup environment in Chennai. It has a unique habitat and ecosystem that offers a variety of market options. Cloud-based apps are one of the market’s primary developments. ZOHO, a major cloud-based programme that provides online business, network, and IT infrastructure management solutions, is another Chennai-based start-up that is giving Salesforce a run for its money. As a result of its position as a key auto manufacturing centre, it provides a large number of prospects to diverse hardware startups.
These are the reasons why Chennai is emerging as a leader in India’s startup environment. Several start-ups have sprung up in Chennai in recent years with the goal of reshaping the world. So, here are a few of the startups that are altering the commercial landscape in Chennai.
1. Sulekha
Photo by Sulekha
Details of Sulekha
Founder: Satya Prabhakar
Founded: 1996
Industry: Service Directory
Headquarter: Chennai
Estimated revenue: $10M
Sulekha founded by Satya Prabhakar in 1996, is one of Chennai’s most successful startups. The major goal of launching the startup was to create a platform for customers and businesses to connect with one another. Sulekha employs over 1,300 people and has 14 offices throughout the world, including the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, Canada, and the United States.
Satya is from the Andhra Pradesh city of Machilipatnam. He earned his bachelor’s degree in engineering from NIT Trichy and has worked for Philips. He was admitted to all four IIMs (Ahmadabad, Bangalore, Calcutta, and Lucknow) as a studious and academically capable guy, but he chose to pursue a Master’s degree in Computer Science at the University of Florida, Gainesville. He has also written over 50 articles and opinion pieces on a variety of subjects, including technical, business, and general interest. Harvard Business Review, The Wall Street Journal, Business Line, and other publications have published some of these. He is also an active Charter Member of the TiE and has written “Black, White, and Various Shades of Brown,” which was published by Penguin India (The Indus Entrepreneur).
2. BankBazar
Photo by BankBazar
Details of BankBazar
Founder: Rati Setty, Adhil Shetty, Arjun Shetty
Founded: 2008
Industry: Fintech
Headquarter: Chennai
Estimated revenue: $10.97M
BankBazaar is a project that aims to provide a long-overdue alternative to India’s rigged banking system. BankBazaar has carved out a niche for itself in the fintech startup world over the years. Being the world’s first neutral online marketplace that delivers users immediate tailored quotations on loans, credit cards, mutual funds, and insurance products, this startup is all about assisting consumers with better prices and increased awareness of what goes into the financial markets.
All of this began in 2007, when Rati Shetty, one of the co-founders, was attempting to obtain a home loan with her husband Arjun Shetty. The pair discovered that obtaining a property loan in India was extremely difficult. They approached numerous banks but quickly became dissatisfied because the process was both time-consuming and complicated. Rati wanted to find a speedy answer to the house loan application process as a result. She accomplished this by transforming herself into an entrepreneur who would make the entire process simple. Hence, the idea for BankBazaar was born, which she launched in 2008 alongside Arjun and his brother Adhil Shetty.
3. NetMeds
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Details of NetMeds
Founder: Pradeep Dadha
Founded: 2015
Industry: Online Pharmacy
Headquarter: Chennai
Estimated revenue: $4.7M
Netmeds is one of India’s leading online pharmacies, offering high-quality prescription drugs, over-the-counter pharmaceuticals, general health care goods, Ayurvedic medicines, and homoeopathic medicines, among other things. It has delivery services all over India. Netmeds is a division of Dadha & Company, one of India’s most reputable pharmacy companies with more than a century of experience delivering high-quality medications. This startup company was formed in 2010 by Pradeep Dadha and is based in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Reliance Industries is Netmeds’ parent business.
Pradeep’s family has been in the pharmaceutical retailing business since 1914, and in 1972, they ventured into the medicine manufacturing sector. When Tamil Nadu Dadha Pharmaceuticals Ltd (TDPL) was bought by Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd in 1997, the family of Pradeep Dadha was in charge of the manufacturing plant. After that, TDPL merged with Sun Pharma. Sun Pharma’s board of directors includes S. Mohanchand Dadha, Pradeep’s father and the startup company’s founder. Netmeds.com was founded by Pradeep Dadha, CEO of Netmeds, to take advantage of e-commerce and add a new dimension to his father’s efforts.
4. Zoho
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Details of Zoho
Founder: Sridhar Vembu and Tony Thomas
Founded: 1996
Industry: Software Development
Headquarter: Chennai
Estimated revenue: $9.28M
Zoho is one of India’s most successful IT startups. The software development sector is the foundation of the company. It includes all business management products, such as a project management tool, an email sending client, and a financial management tool, to meet your needs. It has almost 40 million users worldwide. Sridhar Vembu and Tony Thomas co-founded ZOHO in 1995. Sridhar received his early education in a Tamil medium government-aided school in Chennai until the tenth grade, after which he attended IIT Madras for his undergraduate studies. Later, in 1989, he earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Princeton University. After completing his Ph. D. in 1994, he went to work for Qualcomm in San Diego.
Throughout his time at Princeton University, he reads a number of books to learn more about the markets of Japan, Singapore, and Taiwan and how they were able to thrive so successfully. He saw that socialism was India’s major problem, and he sought to eliminate it. So, when his brother brought up the idea two years later, he decided to follow his brother, quit his job, and return to his home country to use technology to alleviate the country’s problems. They teamed up with Tony Thomas, a veteran in the field who had some network administration software. They founded Vembu software in a modest flat in Chennai in 1996, which later evolved into Zoho.
5. Lawbot
Photo by Startup Talky
Details of LawBot
Founder: Manasvini Krishna and Krishna Sundaresan
Founded: 2016
Industry: LegalTech
Headquarter: Chennai
Estimated revenue: < $5M
Lawbot, built by Acumenist Analytics Pvt Ltd in Chennai, has joined the bot revolution. Manaswani Krishna and Krishna Sundaresan founded the startup, which is part of Target’s fourth round of accelerators. When a contract is submitted in the backend, the platform, which is essentially an AI-powered contracts engine, checks for typical faults and loopholes, pointing out missing obligations and limits. The programme, which is bootstrapped, also assists in the automatic preparation and review of contracts.
Manasvini Krishna is an accomplished lawyer and entrepreneur. She graduated from National Law University in Bhopal with a Bachelor of Legislative Law degree and subsequently went on to the University of Oxford for his Master’s degree. She then co-founded Samvad Partners in 2012 before beginning her own company. Manasvini founded Lawbot.ai in 2016. The startup company is based in the legal technology industry. It’s a platform that uses machine learning and natural language processing to analyse contacts.
6. CaratLane
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Details of CaratLane
Founder: Mithun Sacheti and Srinivasa Gopalan
Founded: 2008
Industry: Jewelry E-commerce
Headquarter: Chennai
Estimated revenue: $19.8M
Caratlane is one of India’s most popular online jewellery stores. The company was formed to provide ladies with modern, beautiful jewellery that could also be worn on a daily basis. By 2020, the company will have over 92 retail locations in over 36 cities across the United States. Mithun Sacheti and Srinivasa Gopalan formed the company in 2008, and it is headquartered in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Titan Jewelry bought the company in 2016, and it’s now advertised as a Tanishq collaboration.
The startup then moved on to create its own app, which included facial recognition and 3D imaging technology so that buyers could virtually put on the jewellery pieces. According to a 2011 analysis by Dataquest and JuxtConsult, Caratlane was one of India’s top 20 e-commerce websites.
7. ThoughtBit
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Photo by National Centre of Excellence
Details of ThoughtBit
Founder: Sidharthan Panneerselvam
Founded: 2017
Industry: Information Technology and Services
Headquarter: Chennai
Estimated revenue: $6.85K (2019)
ThoughtBit Technologies, based in Chennai, specialises in corporate software and is well known for its ThoughtAccess identity and access management platform, which aids mid-market businesses. GST, GST Compliance, cyber security, IAM, and SaaS are all areas where ThoughtBit excels. ThoughtBit Access, a Cognitive Identity and Access Management on Cloud Platform created specifically for Mid-market organisations, is one of the startup’s offerings. Three-step compliance procedure, cloud storage, application monitoring in the cloud, mobile readiness, distributed middleware architecture for load capacity, and big data analytics are among the characteristics. The startup from Chennai claims to be able to analyse petabytes of data and has a millisecond analysis tool. It also partnered with the chartered accounting firm Ray & Ray. The product has not yet been released as of November 2017. The Indian Institute of Information Technology Design incubated the idea.
8. Galaxeye
Photo by Pravartak
Details of Galaxeye
Founder: Satya Chakravarthy and Suyash Singh
Founded: 2020
Industry: Defence and space
Headquarter: Chennai
Estimated revenue: < $5M
Galaxeye is a company that specialises in space technology, which includes technology that monitors Earth and space. The company also aids in the development of space infrastructure that allows for planetary evolution. It also uses space technology to help other tech companies make smarter judgments and run their operations more effectively. Galaxeye specialises in a variety of fields, including remote sensing, earth observation, artificial intelligence, space technology, image processing, and geospatial analytics. Their image dataset will give analysts and customers with a plethora of chances and benefits. By early 2023, the startup plans to launch its first satellite. The company was created in 2020 by a group of people that were part of the Avishkar Hyperloop competition, which was organised by Elon Musk’s aerospace and space transportation services company SpaceX.
9. Flintobox
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Photo by Flintobox
Details of Flintobox
Founder: Arunprasad Durairaj, Vijaybabu Gandhi, and Shreenidhi Srirangam
Founded: 2013
Industry: Education
Headquarter: Chennai
Estimated revenue: $2.05M
When parents allow their children to access the internet, the child’s imagination and originality are stifled. Childhood should be a period when children participate in physical activity rather than staring at computer or cellphone screens. Flintobox is a startup company that creates educational activity boxes for kids based on themes. It offers 3–4 activities per month, each with a different subject and a book. These activity boxes can be reused, and they frequently occupy multiple children. Flintobox can, in theory, produce resources for Early Child Development on a monthly basis.
Vijaybabu Gandhi came up with the fundamental concept for Flintobox when he was confronted with this situation with his 5-year-old son, who was more unknowingly engrossed in movies and mobile phones. This upset Gandhi, and he began to consider how he could avoid the issue. As a result, he set out to build a product that could be utilised to boost children’s creativity through engaging activities. To do so, he considered launching a company like this to safeguard children from the effects of technology. It was then from there that the idea for Flintobox arose. Following that, he shared the concept with two of his buddies, who are now co-founders. They came up with the idea of launching a company named Flintobox together.
10. Wandertrails
Photo by Indian CEO
Details of Wandertrails
Founder: Vishnu Menon, Pranav Kumar, Sruti Chander, Hari Nair, and Narayan Menon
Founded: 2016
Industry: Travel and Tourism
Headquarter: Chennai
Estimated revenue: $21M
Wandertrails is a Chennai-based startup company that specialises in travel technology. It provides an online platform for on-demand scheduling of experiences unique to a specific region, as well as related experiential lodging to complement these events. Wandertrails operates on the basis of a curated marketplace approach, with a focus on listing quality and depth. In March 2020, it raised $1 million dollars. Wandertrails sets itself apart from other travel sites by emphasising experiences that are unique to the area. It curates experiences, ensuring that clients are aware of the location’s distinctiveness, the aesthetics of the property’s legacy/story, the activities that are distinctive to the location, and the nature of the hospitality.
When one of the founders ran into an issue, the idea was born. When Sruti, Wandertrails’ Co-founder and COO, was planning her wedding guest list in Kerala, she realised how difficult it was to manage one request that had been made by all of her family who was travelling from overseas. These visitors wanted a “genuine” Kerala experience rather than a “touristy” one. Wandertrails was founded on the difficulty of giving experiences not frequently seen in standard itineraries. The company was founded in January 2016, with the platform going live in July 2016 and the founders investing less than Rs 40 lakh.
Conclusion
These are the startup companies that our team identified after conducting research. We hope that this article reaches you and inspires you to be more entrepreneurial. Everything has to begin somewhere, so why not begin here?
