Bangalore,  October 27 2018: The National Association of Software & Services Companies (NASSCOM)  shared  its vision for an Indian   Product Mission 2020. The mission is aimed at rallying the entire ecosystem to ­accelerate the process of creating the foundation for world class products in new tech, and product businesses out of India over the next 24 months. NASSCOM unveiled this mission  marking  the  15th year anniversary of its annual flagship event NASSCOM Product Conclave (NPC)  here earlier this week.
India is currently a $7 Billion Sector with 3720+ companies, with the landscape growing at a rate of 9.5% annually. As part of its Product Mission 2020, through various programs such as NASSCOM FutureSkills, NASSCOM 10K Startups,  NASSCOM Accelerate 10X etc,   the association  aims to further scale up the sector in order to enhance our relevance in the global market and help drive growth in the economy and create jobs in the domestic arena.
Says Debjani Ghosh, President, NASSCOM: “India has always been a torch bearer in innovation, and we are witnessing global success stories of products from India. It is now time for us to leverage the new wave of technology and accelerate our leadership in the domain. Product Mission 2020 is aimed at providing a firm foundation to the sector, to enable companies to scale at a global level.
Adds Atul Batra - Chair, NASSCOM Product Council: “India has a very vibrant and growing product ecosystem, and now we feel it is time to help move it to the next level of growth. We are the precipice of a dynamic shift in the industry, and India is at an advantageous position with the right talent, expertise and global market access to ride this change. Just like we pioneered and led with IT Services­, we can similarly lead the race to provide next generation products based on data, AI and Cloud to the world.”
EscapeVelocity
India continues to reinforce its position as the third largest start-up ecosystem across the world, taking the total number of tech start-ups to 7200-7700. India moved to 57th rank in Global Innovation Index, up from 60th in 2017. These trends were discussed at the launch of the NASSCOM- report on the ‘Indian Start-up Ecosystem – Approaching Escape Velocity’,  on the side-lines of the of NASSCOM Product Conclave 2018.
Post 2017, investment into start-ups have increased by over 100 percent, from$ 2.0Bn in 2017 to $ 4.2Bn in 2018. The total number of start-up funding deals especially in the late stages (Series C, D, E, F) witnessed a massive growth of around 250%, from $847 million in 2017 to $3.0 billion in 2018. Even though the amount of seed stage funding raised stood at $151 million, the larger number of late-stage deals rose sharply, signalling a renewed investor confidence in the Indian start-up ecosystem.
Growing at 50% year on year, advanced tech start-ups focused on creating solutions in segments like Artificial Intelligence, Analytics, Augmented Reality/Virtual reality, Blockchain and Internet of Things, among others, have witnessed a momentous rise in 2018, driven by factors such as increase in internet penetration, better infrastructure for digital transactions, Govt. push on financial inclusion and innovative tech accelerating the pace of payments, lending & digital banking. Implementation of artificial intelligence is also becoming a norm, growing at 5-year CAGR of 54-58%, witnessing over 120% growth in funding for AI Start-ups (Over USD 150 Mn invested in 2018). Further, blockchain start-ups have observed significant inflow of funding (2 -11 million $), growing over 500 percent year on year.
Indian unicorns in the B2C space continue to garner global funds and are expanding their horizons to other markets stirring up the competitive landscape. Creating a benchmark in the global start-up ecosystem, the year 2018 witnessed addition of 8 Unicorns, the most in a single calendar year.  With the vision of build in India, built for the world, India saw more than 400 cross border start-ups in 2018. The disruptive innovation in technology and process is creating newer Indian start-ups and foreign investors are showing immense interest in these start-ups. This has also led to create more than 40,000 new direct Jobs and 4-5 lakhs Indirect Jobs, taking the total Direct Job base to 1.6-1.7 lakhs.