Jaipur's Infrastructure And Talent Make It An Emerging Startup Hub

Jaipur offers entrepreneurs a unique blend of big-city infrastructure and small-town convenience

- Rajiv Singh

Model Town, Jaipur

For brothers Amit and Anurag Jain—both IIT-Delhi alumni—Jaipur happened by default. They had to abruptly leave their jobs in the US and come back to the Pink City after their father was detected with cancer in 2006. Over the next few months, they made a futile hunt for a job in their hometown. For the IT geeks, though, the gems and jewellery hub didn’t have much to offer. The duo tried its hand at a rash of ventures, from a silver jewellery startup to taking their father’s gem stone business online and running an astrological service. Nothing worked.

Until the brothers started a software outsourcing company, GirnarSoft, from the garage of their home in 2007. “Can you get people to work out of a garage in Bengaluru or Mumbai?” asks Amit, with a wide grin.

A year later, the brothers discovered their Eureka moment. A chance visit to the Auto Expo in Delhi gave birth to the idea of an online portal to sell cars. The market was nascent, the customer need was acute and the timing to push the offline car market towards online was perfect. The gambit worked. CarDekho, which stayed bootstrapped for five years since its launch in 2008, has become India’s biggest online car platform, with operations in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand as well.

GirnarSoft, the parent company of CarDekho, rolled out a slew of related auto online verticals—organically and via acquisitions—such as Zigwheels. com, BikeDekho.com, Gaadi.com and PowerDrift. It also started a battery of other online ventures such as CollegeDekho.com, TyreDekho. com and TrucksDekho.com.