CII proposes India-Korea Startup Summit; Calls upon Hyundai, Samsung, LG, other big Cos to partner with startups

NEW DELHI. In its bid to offer a platform to facilitate the cross movement of startups from India and South Korea, India’s apex trade body Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has proposed to organize a dedicated India-Korea Startup Summit next year.

CII has also called upon Hyundai, Samsung, LG, other big companies to partner with startups in India for seeking solutions to their requirements.

“Last year alone, about $25 billion investment came to India in the startup ecosystem and this is the next area of growth happening here. However, Chinese companies invested $5 billion during this time, and Korean invested in 10 startups to the tune of $ 450 million. There is an uptake in the investment by Korean companies,” said Munish Chawla, Co-chairman, Regional Committee on Entrepreneurship & Startups, CII during the India-Korea Business Partnership Forum 2019 held in New Delhi recently.

“I am proposing an India-Korea startup summit on the line of Netherland and Indian startups summit recently when they were competing with each other in the same set of problems. I suggest, there has to be a startup summit every year with Korea starting next year,” added Chawla.

CII is of the view that Indian startups need to visit South Korea to study the market, their requirements and offer the solutions which they have developed in India. Such initiatives offer the support the startup ecosystem requires such as matchmaking platform. Especially, when they are looking for partners overseas, and also for the overseas startup looking for partners in India.

“Similarly, the South Korean market should be coming to India. Therefore we need to create a platform to help the movement of startups from both sides,” said the 40-year-old banker-turned-startupreneuer who has been in the startup industry for the last seven years.

In Feb 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi opened up India-Korea Startup Hub in Seoul, as the idea was to foster Korean participation in the India startup system and vice versa.

According to CII, India has 20,000 startups today, and every day 4 new startups keep adding making India one of the largest startup ecosystems in the world. It has 250 incubators across the country and startups are coming from small towns like Varanasi and Warangal as the startup ecosystem was going to tier 2 and 3 towns as well making India the most exciting place to be for the startups.

“I led a CII Startup delegation to Italy last year and found they were very keen to come to India and enthused by the opportunity here but they didn’t know how to do it. Koreans also face a similar problem of how to tap the Indian market. Korea has 1600 startups and about 60 percent of them are based out of Seoul. They will be more than keen to have solutions here and it’s a huge market for them,” said Chawla.

As per CII, this year alone, eight unicorns (the minimum $1 billion companies) came from the startup ecosystem. China and India are matchmaking in the number of unicorns that are coming into this space.

These unicorns are coming because they have understood the problem statement the industry was having, they have come out with innovative solutions, the market has picked up their solutions and they are the unicorns of the Indian ecosystem.

Startups invoke innovations, possess problem-solving capability:

CII is of the view that if the (big) companies have to survive in India, they have to start sharing their problems with the startups as at the pace these big players are growing, it becomes difficult for them to constantly innovate and come up with new things.  Therefore there has to be a partnership between the industry and startups.

“I would suggest the Hyundai, Samsung, LG and other big companies to partner with the startups in India for the problems they are having. And there can be a hackathon and share the problem statement. They will find interesting solutions from them,” said Chawla.

Manish went on to say, “A lot of innovation is being done by the players like Hyundai in the car space and Samsung in the digital transformation space.  But I see a lot of solutions for the problems happening in startups in co-working spaces, the industry is having. If you are looking for innovation, employment and for peace, people, and prosperity, I think a startup is one of the ways forward. All the innovation is going to happen here.”

“I hope the industry to come forward to look forward to the growth of the country through the startup ecosystem in India,” he culminated.