DAVIDS IN ORBIT, GOLIATHS IN SIGHT

Fortune India's cohort of select startups shows what it takes to break new ground while pursuing profitable growth.

-  V. Keshavdev

IF NUMBERS HAD a voice, 2024 would be nothing short of vociferous—a relentless, booming chorus echoing across boardrooms, investor calls, and startup accelerators alike. The numbers are loud: $8.7 billion raised across 81 new funds, a 55% leap from 2023. Early-stage companies are flush with $1.94 billion in fresh capital.

But money, as always, tells only part of the story. Beyond the spreadsheets and headlines, the ever-evolving landscape of Indian startups is redefining what entrepreneurship means.

It was during a keynote address at the Kotak Institutional Equities' investor conference that Uday Kotak, founder of Kotak Mahindra Bank, set the cat among the pigeons with his comment: “The next generation must work hard and create businesses rather than becoming financial investors too early,” Kotak urged. Instead of managing family offices and portfolios, young heirs, he argued, should roll up their sleeves and build—“real-world businesses from scratch”.

While Kotak’s rebuke was aimed at the gen next of existing business owners, India’s first-gen entrepreneurial engine is very much alive and roaring. In this swirl of ambition and uncertainty, stakeholders such as Kunal Bahl, co-founder of Titan Capital, are playing their role in helping the startup ecosystem morph from scrappy beginnings to its current feverish pitch. “People ask me: what has changed? Everything,” he says. For someone who has navigated both the chaos and clarity of entrepreneurship for nearly two decades, Bahl mentions that at one point, debates swirled around whether India had 25 million or 50 million internet users. Now, that number has swelled beyond one billion, turning a once-sleepy market into a digital behemoth where payments, consumption, and innovation collide in unexpected ways. “It’s not additive—it’s compounding. It’s a multiplier effect. Every new connection deepens the opportunity,” Bahl reflects.