Bengaluru’s start-up ecosystem: Aiming for global top five by 2030

The latest global start-up ecosystem report has brought both validation and a clear roadmap for Karnataka’s digital growth. With Bengaluru firmly holding its position among the top 15 start-up hubs globally and ranking second in Asia for its ecosystem cluster performance, the focus has now shifted to sustaining this momentum.

BV Naidu, Chairman of the Karnataka Digital Economy Mission (KDEM), weighs in on what the report signifies, the critique surrounding talent and funding, and why a copy-paste blueprint from Silicon Valley will not work for India.

How do you view the findings of the latest report, particularly regarding areas of improvement and what has already been achieved?

We have been engaging with this report for the last two years. Whenever such a report comes out, it becomes a little benchmark for us to see how well we are performing, what needs to be improved, and where we are doing well. I look at this report more as a reflection of what we are doing right and what needs to be improved.

Over the past year, we have maintained our global ranking more or less at the same level, which is a significant achievement. In Asia, we are number two in cluster performance, which signals very well. If you look at the specific parameters contributing to this ranking, we scored nine out of ten on the performance of the overall cluster.

Secondly, in terms of R&D, we did much better than Silicon Valley regarding patents and the overall R&D ecosystem. These are areas where we have performed remarkably well on a global scale.

The report highlights some gaps as well. Where does the ecosystem need to step up?

There are two or three areas we need to further improve. One is local market access for start-ups, which we will be focusing on moving forward. The second is funding access, which we are continuously working to improve.

However, the report gave us a score of four out of ten for talent. We need to look closely at what exactly made them give such a low marking for talent, compare it with what was there last year, and focus heavily on that this year. Improving talent and local market access will be key to helping us scale up further.

Bengaluru’s software engineer salaries remain significantly lower than global standards. Is affordable talent still an advantage, or does it risk a brain drain where people relocate for better pay?

The talent is affordable, but the situation globally is changing. I just came back from Silicon Valley, and the situation is not that great there either.

Our quality talent availability in India, even though they are paid less, remains competitive to global wages—even if it is much lower than global averages. With everything we have put in place over the last few years, we have done well and will continue to do well. I do not see this causing a major problem for our ecosystem.