Investors’ push hurt start-ups

Pressure from investors is the root cause of startups being pushed to the wall as they are being forced to scale up operations too fast, says media entrepreneur and UTV Group founder Ronnie Screwvala.

“Several start-ups have had to scale back operations lately. It is not an ecosystem issue, but plain silly investor pressure to have a multi-city strategy that is creating these problems,” Mr Screwvala, who is now leading seed fund Unilazer Ventures, said.

The start-up space has been attracting billions of hot money from scores of PE firms and other foreign investors like SoftBank of Japan and Chinese online retailer Alibaba, jacking up values within months.

A whopping $14 billion got pumped into the country’s start-ups in 2015, though the tap has not yet turned dry.