India Startups Are Thriving, With More on the Way

Have you noticed the number of Indian startups making international news lately? Well, the world media and investors sure have, and with good reason. The startup scene in India has not only weathered the last year of global uncertainty, it’s managing to thrive by staying focused on core offerings. According to a report from KPMG and Pitchbook, that worked out to 2019 Q3 returns in the $3.6 billion range.

Fortune India reports that as of the end of 2019, India was home to 26 unicorns. And according to Inc42, by the end of 2020, 11 more were added to the ranks. That’s an increase of 42%, during a global pandemic no less. The keys to this success are varied, some say it’s the wide range of user pain points these products address — from remote learning platforms to touchless payment options, and from low-interest loans for struggling students to drones that are helping wipe out malaria.

Today, we want to give you an overview of the technology startup scene in India, starting with a brief history showing the roots of today’s expanding successes. Then we’ll touch on a couple of our favorites to highlight the diversity of needs being addressed. And finally a look at the developer-focused nature of some of the startups we’re working with, and how this model is helping them thrive in today’s reality.

Technology Startups In India: A Condensed History

A recent study by Global Entrepreneurship Monitor reported that nearly 20% of workers in India intend to start a business within three years. That statistic sums up the entrepreneurial spirit of the sub-continent and forms the foundation for growth we’re seeing today. India’s role on the international tech scene began in 1968 when Tata Consultancy Services partnered with an American mainframe manufacturer to provide support services. Successive waves of development followed, continuing through the 2010s when an expansion of R&D facilities led to further innovation and expansion of infrastructure, including the creation of Indiastack — a homegrown consent-based scalable architecture that is helping power the next wave of IP-based, deep-tech innovation in India.

The tech sector has now matured to the point where homegrown incubators and accelerators have taken the lead and are helping fuel the current round of startups. These new startups are building on a solid history of innovation and collaboration — and adding their own unique stamp with cutting-edge advances. Along the way, they’ve developed an understanding of the power of outsourcing and partnering with fellow innovators who may be producing something they can incorporate to further their own product development.

Indian Startups Address a Range of User Pain Points

With a local business history ranging from outsourced support for mainframes, all the way to cutting-edge R&D, it’s no wonder there are so many interesting and innovative startups in India today. And when you look at the international trend toward componentized development you see why companies with this rich and varied history are able to thrive. To keep it on topic, we decided to highlight a handful of startups that we at Auth0 are already working with to give you a taste of the range of use cases being addressed.

The founders of these organizations saw a need in their communities and decided to create the technology that could address those needs in scalable ways. In partnering with us here at Auth0 to ensure their CIAM needs were met while allowing their in-house development teams to focus their talents on developing the best core product possible, these young organizations are laying the groundwork for sustainable growth going forward.

InCred: Single sign-on streamlines the development cycle

InCred is a new-age financial services platform that leverages technology and data science to make lending quick and easy for individuals and small businesses. They believe traditional ways of lending tend to exclude those most in need because of outdated, rigid, and inefficient processes. InCred has simplified the lending process, leveraging cutting-edge technology and a sharp focus on serving their borrowers’ unique needs and circumstances to offer a truly superior borrowing experience.

InCred was founded to provide microloans with terms that would allow their customers to thrive while building credit. With zero brick-and-mortar presence, the entire InCred loan process is app-based, yet backed by human-powered, and human-scaled, customer service. When they needed a single sign-on (SSO) solution that would let them set granular controls to limit user access to specific apps, they turned to Auth0.

LambdaTest: Easy extensibility via a cloud-based testing platform

LambdaTest is a SaaS platform that enables software developers and QA testers to run tests faster and more efficiently on a cloud infrastructure. LambdaTest allows developers to increase their browser coverage and cut down on overall test execution times. With LambdaTest, developers can test their website’s look, feel, and performance on more than 2000 browser, operating systems, and device combinations — all from one platform.

LambdaTest spotted a clear gap in the market for a development testing environment that allowed cross-platform testing in an accessible format. Testing teams across the globe were struggling to scale up their resources to match the fast-paced development cycles global consumers demand. Their platform allows even the smallest bootstrapped startup access to the testing power they need to ensure cross-platform compatibility. And Auth0’s extensive SDK library and easy extensibility pairs well with this model, allowing LambdaTest’s customers to quickly and easily access all of their testing tools smoothly, knowing that we can scale at pace with their expanding business.

mPokket: Hybrid environment authentication, simplified

With an estimated seven million Indians graduating college each year, mPokket knows it can be hard when you’re just starting out in the world. With their app, students and recent grads can get instant loans to cover bills or rent without the need to provide collateral. In addition, the borrower can set their own custom repayment schedule of up to three months This limited repayment timeframe is to encourage prudent financial planning and careful use of available funds — thus setting them up to be successful savers and investors later in their working lives. By focusing their microlending business on young adults, mPokket aims to help the next generation achieve financial independence earlier.

mPokket makes ample use of Auth0’s Log Streaming capabilities to help ensure compliance with India’s financial reporting standards. They also cite our seamless authentication user experience across their hybrid application landscape as a determining factor in their decision. They are also seeing increased conversions due to the ease of use provided by social sign-on in addition to static user databases.

Ontic: Ensuring compliance via integrations

Blending digital with real-world security is where Ontic steps in. They provide the first protective intelligence platform that takes digital intelligence and brings it to physical security professionals. This ensures that those in charge of protecting an institution’s most valuable assets, its people, have the most relevant intelligence for early threat detection. Insights from Ontic’s cloud-based SaaS platform allow corporate security and education leaders to better identify pre-incident indicators, perform risk assessments, and mitigate potential threats in order to protect employees, patrons, students, educators, facilities, and schools.

What Ontic sees in Auth0 is a SaaS partner. The time and resources saved by partnering with us are put directly into developing the best core product possible. By allowing their clients to seamlessly integrate with Auth0 single sign-on and Multifactor Authentication, Ontic enables their clients to remain compliant with their own industry regulations without the hassle of creating these integrations internally. And knowing that updates and maintenance of their login flow are in the capable hands of our industry specialists takes one more stress away from their development team.

One Thing These Startups Share Is a Developer Focus

The history of India’s technology sector has led to a healthy community of software developers with years of experience and often highly specialized expertise in their fields. These companies are using their entrepreneurial tolerance for risk and their innate problem-solving abilities to flourish, even during a global pandemic.

A global survey conducted by Auth0 found that when a software company puts their trust in their developers, they spend more wisely when it comes to SaaS products. This, in turn, allows these companies to stay agile and speeds their time-to-market considerably. And with the majority of startup founders coming from a development background, the current crop of Indian startups are very strong in their developer focus, further aiding their successes.

By allowing their often small development teams to focus on the core product with smart investments in platform as a service (PaaS), identity as a service (IDaaS), and other SaaS offerings, these startups are positioned to create the disruption they’re looking for, no matter what sector or industry they’re entering. In Auth0’s recent survey of global IT managers, development leaders, and technology industry executives, we found that a full 91% of developer respondents feel that having a say in SaaS purchases leads to higher overall job satisfaction (88%) and an increase in productivity (87%).

This developer-centric model is how Auth0 works as well. We were founded on the idea that by empowering developers to focus on their core strengths, companies are better positioned to come out with the best products possible.

We make it easy by bundling everything you need in a customer identity and access management (CIAM) solution into a streamlined package with all the SDKs and APIs your developers need to integrate Auth0 into your core offerings. Download our recent whitepaper on How Development Teams Purchase SaaS to learn more. Or Get in touch with one of our specialists today to begin the conversation.