For start-ups to fulfil their dreams, easy funding is one of the biggest challenge.
For start-ups to fulfil their dreams, easy funding is one of the biggest challenge.
“The private equity generally rushes in one direction. Banks are not taking position to support early stage projects hence only areas of interest to private equity are seeing growth in start-ups. If government ensures a frictionless access to early stage capital to young entrepreneurs, we will see many more start-ups in areas of priority for country’s overall development,” said Pramod Saxena, chairman Oxigen Services
SoftBank president Nikesh Arora said that investors have now become a bit cautious while investing in new start-ups. “We have seen that a higher degree of risk has come into the market so there is little bit of caution. I think all that does is it makes it a little bit harder to raise money if you don’t have a good idea,” said Mr Arora.
But, he said that great companies will continue to get funded, “lot of not-so-great companies will get weeded out. “I expect to continue to see funding happening and a market to be there for great ideas,” he said. However, Zomato founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal felt that the issue of capital should not be a roadblock.
“In terms of access to capital, if you look at all tech start-ups in India, they all started in 2007-08 when there was absolutely no funding on the table,” he said.
The problem with present generation of start-ups, Mr Goyal noted, is they want access to capital, incubation, government help to all fall in place.
