The Limitations of Venture Capital in India
U.S. venture funding helped create a startup boom in India. Competition from U.S. companies, however, makes an Indian Silicon Valley unlikely.
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In 2021, venture capital investments in India reached an all-time high of nearly $40 billion.1 This was far above the previous peak of $11 billion in 2019 and an order of magnitude higher than the $3 billion of investments in 2013. The same year, India surpassed the United Kingdom to become the country with the third-most unicorns—privately-held startup companies valued at over $1 billion.2 As of January 2023, India has 70 unicorns, compared to China’s 172 and the United States’ 651.3 India has a young and growing population of 1.4 billion people and an information technology industry that makes up an estimated 7.4% of GDP, despite still being relatively poor overall.4 Indian economic growth is key to expectations of future global growth and, unlike Africa, has the prerequisite of being politically stable.