If you’re an existing or aspiring IITian, we have great news for you. Did you know? The most successful unicorn startups are majorly founded by IItians. IIT is one of the most reputed engineering institutes in India for which aspiring candidates have to crack JEE exam.
As technology is evolving rapidly, business opportunities in this sector are also flourishing. The ones who took the most leverage yet are the IITians, some joined hands with leading global companies like Google, Facebook, and Microsoft, and some decided to take build an empire of their own.
If you also aspire to build a million or billion-dollar business in the near future, the best decision would be to enroll in IIT. According to a study by UK-based payroll and accounting firm, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), ranks as the fourth-largest producer of unicorn startups in the world. It was also covered in the economic times, where they stated 30 out of 58 unicorn startup founders are IIT graduates.
Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah, Zomato
It all started with an experiment at their workplace in the year 2008, which later turned out to be a $660 million dollar global business for Pankaj Chaddhah and Deepinder Goyal. They both graduated from IIT Delhi and then became friends while working in an organization called Bain & Co. It is very natural to feel hungry and feel like munching when you’re busy, so they used to order a lot of food from different restaurants along with other colleagues. They also got into arguments with other co-workers as the number of available menu copies was much less, but the number of people who wanted to order was comparatively high.
They both began exploring new restaurants in Delhi, scanned their menus, and then put them on the office intranet. It was in 2008, they realized that they can turn it into a business. So, Zomato was first started as an online platform to discover restaurants and menus, as the website gained popularity, Deepinder’s wife got a job at D.U. and he chose to leave his job to fully focus on Zomato.
Today, their startup has won thousands of awards, they have expanded their business in 20+ countries, employs more than 4000 people, and caters to 35 million users in a month.
Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati, Ola
Bhavish and Ankit graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT Bombay) with a Computer Science degree. Within six years after graduating they founded Ola, during the initial period they did everything, Bhavish managed customer, and partner relations, while Ankit looked after the technical aspects of the organization.
What made Ola different from others was their unique approach, instead of buying or renting cars, they decided to partner with taxi drivers, and wonders, then added a pinch of modern technology to make it seamless. The whole process allowed people to book cabs within a few minutes via the Ola app. Ola is a homegrown startup with a 50% market share in India, it caters to over 250 cities in India and is partnered with more than 2.5 million driver-partners. Ola has also added an option to book autos and bikes, providing more employment opportunities to drivers, and an option to ride cheaper to customers.
During the first few months of operations, the founders did everything, from attending customer calls to driving a passenger to the airport. Thanks to their hands-on approach, Ola grew rapidly. In 2011, they successfully raised angel funding to expand into new cities and in 2016, bought TaxiForSure for $200 million.
Binny Bansal and Sachin Bansal, Flipkart
One of the largest e-commerce companies, Flipkart was founded by Binny and Sanchin Bansal in October 2007. Though the founders share the same surname, they are not related to each other by blood but were acquainted with each other before founding Flipkart. They both were born in Chandigarh and graduated from IIT Delhi, they both worked at different organizations and then landed at Amazon, one of the biggest e-commerce organizations in the world. This is when the idea to start their own company came to their mind.
They were able to raise 4 lakh investment from their savings and started a website in October 2007, initially, they only sold books. Since their success largely depended on the delivery time, they launched their own supply chain management system and made sure that the products were delivered on time. They were the first ones to provide the COD option as people were skeptical about online payments. Now Flipkart has a user base of more than 50 million people who buy everything from jewelry, mobile phone, clothes, and television, to stationery every day.
Sanjay Sethi & Radhika Sethi, ShopClues
ShopClues joined India’s unicorn club in January 2016 by raising up to $150 million from Singapore Govt Gic along with existing investors, and partners. For a 4-year-old company, it is quite surprising, but thanks to the enormous e-commerce and leadership experience of Radhika Sethi, and Sanjay Sethi, who was able to take ShopClues at this position in such a short span of time.
Sanjay is an IITian, and alumnus of Banaras Hindu University then moved to the US in the late 1990s for professional growth. His job profile revolved around the development of internet products including operations, e-commerce marketplaces, and online payments. Sanjay worked as a global product head at eBay in Silicon Valley and played an important role while setting up eBay’s office, which was located in India. He founded ShopClues with Agarwals in 2011.
Rohit Bansal, Snapdeal
Snapdeal was earlier known as Jasper Infotech, and it will be shocking for you but it was not an e-commerce company till 2008. It was not even an online company at that time. It was founded by Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal with the vision of revolutionizing the discount coupon market for retailers. Their very first product was a coupon booklet. The founders were childhood friends and studied at DPS. Rohit was an IIT graduate and Kunal graduated from Wharton School, both are equally prestigious and globally acknowledged institutions.
Unfortunately, their business model didn’t go well and they had to change their business model until they found the one that worked out for them. They transformed their offline and online coupon-selling business into a wide e-commerce company known as Snapdeal in 2010. They never looked back ever since, and both founders have grown into the largest e-commerce companies in India. Snapdeal has more than 50,00 merchants and serves customers from more than 4,000 cities and towns.
Pranay Chulet, Quikr
Quikr was founded in Pranay Chulet and Jiby Thomas in 2008, it is a classified advertising organization and Indian online marketplace based out of Bangalore. Quikr caters to over 1000 cities and deals in products as household goods, mobile phones, cars, jobs, services, real estate, and education. Quikr provides a platform to users, where they can buy or sell goods, and services. Pranay Chulet did his schooling in Rajasthan and graduated with a Chemical Engineering degree from IIT Delhi.
Abhay Singhal, Naveen Tiwari, Mohit Saxena, and Amit Gupta InMobi
InMobi was founded by IIT Alumni Abhay Singhal, Naveen Tiwari, Mohit Saxena, and Amit Gupta in a one-bedroom flat in Mumbai. It was founded in the year 2007, while Abhay, Naveen, and Amit graduated from IIT Kanpur, and Mohit studied from IIT Roorkee. Naveen also completed his MBA from Harvard Business School.
InMobi started with an idea on a summer day in 2007 when Naveen called his close friend and IIT batchmate Abhay. By the time they were done talking, the duo made up their mind to work on something new, and they were joined by Amit and Mohit. All of them then moved to Mumbai, where they found mKhoj, which was an SMS-based search engine. After one year, they made some advancements in mobile advertising and launched InMobi.
InMobi is a mobile discovery, and advertising platform, where customers can discover new products or services. It provides relevant, contextual, and well-curated recommendations on devices and mobile apps for the best user experience. It also lets clients digitally publish their ads on apps and websites as per their needs. InMobi caters to 800 million users every month that are spread across 165 countries.
If you also aspire to become like these entrepreneurs and graduate from IIT, you will have to crack the JEE exam first. When it comes to JEE preparation, Aakash BYJU has helped thousands of students to reach their goals. To know more about JEE Main courses, you can visit our website and fill out the signup form. Our experts will get back to you and guide you with the best options as per your needs.
To know more about the best IIT institutes in India, you should our blog on the top-ranking IITs in India.
FAQs
1. How many startups are by IITians?
Approximately there are 1237 companies, including 23 unicorns, founded by alumni of IIT Delhi.
2. What is IIT famous for?
Indian Institutes of Technology are globally recognized as premier institutions for engineering education and research.
3. Which is the No 1 IIT in India?
IIT Madras is the No 1 IIT in India.
4. When was the first IIT founded?
The first IIT was founded in May 1950.
5. Who started IIT in India?
India’s first and longest-serving Prime Minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, was a man of vision. A secular humanist, social democrat, and author who started the first IIT in India.
