India is now a clear contender to become the capital of startups. Foreign investment and governmental initiatives such as start up India are all driving forces encouraging and promoting the start up culture in India. In this article we are going to take a look at the ‘Top 5 most promising startups in India 2018’.
1. Zerodha
Zerodha is an Indian financial service company that provides equity investments, retail and institutional broking, commodities and currency trading, and mutual funds, all brokerage free.
The Zerodha was founded by Nithin Kamath in 2010 as he wanted to change the landscape of Indian broking industry by breaking down the hurdles he was confronted to during his time as a trader. He wanted to overcome all obstacles traders and investors face in India when it comes to cost, support and technology.
The company provides ‘Kite’ which is a minimalistic, intuitive, responsive, light but powerful web and mobile trading application. The platform provides a full marketwatch, extensive charting with more than 100 indicators and 6 different chart types, millisecond order placements, etc… The app is used by over 70,000 clients and help provide to 5 million requests daily.
Today, Zerodha is among the fastest growing, top volume contributors on NSE, BSE, MCX-SX and MCX and averaging a daily turnover of over INR 10,000 crore.
Nithin Kamath’s work with the startup escalated him to the “Top 10 Businessmen to Watch Out for in 2016 in India” by The Economic Times for his work in pioneering and scaling discount broking in India. In 2017, the founder of Zerodha was then awarded “Entrepreneur of the Year Award Winner 2017”.
2. Healthians
Healthians is an online diagnostics and wellness startup run by Expedient Healthcare Marketing Pvt. Ltd. The startup is also backed by cricketer Yuvraj Singh from an early-stage fund from his YouWeCan Ventures.
Founded in 2014 by Deepak Sahni and operating in Delhi, Healthians.com became India’s largest health test at home service and aims at creating a new benchmark for very high quality at honest prices.
4 years since its inception, Healthians now boasts having more than 250 phlebotomists employes, covered more than 3000 test, touched over 100,000 lives and carried out more than a million health profiles. It also makes use of 46 hi-tech touchpoints technology to assure quality collection and testing.
The company has also raised INR 51 crore from a set of investors which included Asuka Holdings, Beenext, Beenos, Digital Garage, M&S Partners and YouWeCan Ventures.
3. Emflux Motors
Emflux Motors is a technological start-up based in Bengaluru which is currently designing and developing India’s upcoming first electric superbike. The sportbike will compare with other 600-650 cc motorbikes currently on the market in terms of performances. The bike can reach a top speed of 170 kmph and a 0-100 kmph acceleration in just 3.5 seconds.
A single charge can run the bike for 200km while it only takes 36 mins to charge the battery up to 80%. The prototype is still under construction but the company hopes to showcase the bike at the 2018 Auto Expo.
Varun Mittal, Emflux Motors founder, built the electric sportbike from nothing and included numerous in-house development starting from design, drivetrain and chassis.
4. Ixigo
Ixigo is a leading travel website for destination search and tour planning in India. It finds comparison of the best deals in hotels, trains, flights and travel packages. Ixigo.com compares information from numerous different travel sites and provides a range of offers and deals.
Nowadays, more than 7 million people use the services provided by Ixigo.com.
Ixigo has received numerous investments over the years including Sequoia Capital, Fosun RZ Capital, Saif Partners, MakeMyTrip Limited and Micromas Informatic Limited.
5. Hotstar
Hotstar is an Indian digital and mobile entertainment platform lauched in February 2015 by Star India. It provides online media streamine and video-on-demand.
Hotstar is owned by Novi Digital Entertainment Private Limited, which is an owned subsidiary of Star India Private Limited. At present, Hotstar offers over 50,000 hours of TV content and movies across 8 languages and every major sport event. Hotstar focuses on highly evolved video streaming technology and a high attention to quality of experience across devices and platforms.
Star India, backed by Twenty-First Century Fox, invested over $192 million in its digital content over the last six months due to intense competition among online video providers in India.