Capital Leader

A tale of two cities: Bengaluru retains its spot as India’s start-up capital but Delhi-NCR is fast catching up.

- Goutam Das

ON A FIERY JUNE evening, start-up accelerator GSF organised a tête-à-tête with Tej Kapoor, the India Managing Director of Chinese investor firm Fosun RZ Capital. But it wasn’t a private conversation between two people. Many start-up founders started trickling in at the Bombay Sandwich Company, a new cafe in Gurgaon, the venue for the discussion.

Rajesh Sawhney, Co-founder of food-tech firm InnerChef, which owns the cafe, ordered for a round of cutting chai. He sat in one corner explaining his mission. “Sandwich is a very exciting category.

We have an alternative vision of sandwich from Subway,” he says. “Subway is a mayo sandwich; we are a chutney sandwich. Our vision is to take Bombay to the world. The market looks very large.”

Gurgaon is a good test market for such a cafe – residents are early adopters of new trends, and are willing to pay more for a better experience or trying out new concepts. All this is good news for start-ups. Only a few days back, Sawhney posted on LinkedIn: “Gurgaon could become the No.1 start-up hub of India soon.”

“I know that this will startle my friends in Bangalore, but I am seeing so much action here. Innovative start-ups are sprouting in fintech, mobility, robotics, mediatech, food-tech, digital health and more. The Gurgaon tech ecosystem is attracting both talent and capital from across the world. I see Gurgaon and Bangalore fighting it out for the coveted No.1 spot in 2019,” he added to the post.