Bangalore, also known as Bengaluru, has become a leading hub for entrepreneurship, earning it the nickname of India’s Silicon Valley. From wealth management services to grocery delivery, the startups here are involved in just about everything, and many have garnered the attention of prominent venture capital firms. Below we rounded up a list of the top tech companies helping to fuel the city’s momentum.
Bangalore Startup Companies to Know
- Flipkart
- Swiggy
- Zepto
- Rapido
- PhonePe
- NoBroker
- Smallcase
- CRED
- Perfios
- Udaan
Top Startup Companies in Bangalore
PhonePe is a digital payments and financial services company that allows users to pay their bills, invest, send money and shop all on one app. Backed by the likes of Walmart and General Atlantic, PhonePe dominates transactions on the Unified Payments Interface, a network built by a coalition of retail banks in India that is now the most popular way Indians share money online. In 2023, the startup launched its own app store, positioning itself as a direct competitor to the Google Playstore, which has controlled the lion’s share of the mobile apps available in the country for years.
Bolt.Earth offers charging infrastructure and software solutions for two and three-wheeled electric vehicles. Founded in 2017, the startup initially was created to produce connected devices under the name REVOS. It has since become one of the largest providers of EV charging infrastructure in India, offering fast and slow charging outputs ranging from 3.3 kW to 240 kW. The company has thousands of charging points across India and neighboring countries, and has plans to expand to new markets in Asia, Europe and South America.
Fintech startup smallcase offers platforms and investment products to help users invest in Indian equities, allowing them to purchase shares in a curated selection of stocks and ETFs that fit their goals. The company is backed by several leading investors, including Amazon, Sequoia Capital India and Blume Ventures, and works with a number of stock broker services, including Kite and Upstox.
Rapido is a bike taxi startup operating in more than 100 cities across India. Customers can hail rides on motorcycles, three-wheeled auto rickshaws and, as of October 2023, cars. The company also has a last-mile delivery service called Rapido Box, where customers can have food, groceries and medicine dropped off at their doors. Founded in 2015, Rapido counts VC firms like Nexus Venture Partners and WestBridge as investors, as well as food delivery startup Swiggy and two-wheeler giant TVS Motor Company.
Buyhatke is a product discovery and price comparison platform, and is available as a browser plug-in. Users can track any product’s price over the last 90 days to figure out the best time to purchase, automatically find and apply coupons and get alerts when items they want are most affordable. The startup partners with hundreds of stores, including major retailers like Flipkart, Puma and Amazon.
Onsurity offers a suite of monthly, subscription-based insurance solutions to micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), filling a gap left by traditional insurance companies. Although India has millions of MSMEs, incumbents tend to stick with motor, health and large corporate insurance programs to cater to a larger population. Onsurity fills that void by allowing companies — regardless of their size — to give their employees access to health benefits, fitness memberships, discounted medication and other services. The startup also offers cyber risk insurance, directors and officers liability insurance and commercial general insurance.
Cleo makes a platform for supply chain ecosystems, which integrates the processes that are integral to business in the manufacturing, wholesale, distribution, logistics and transportation spaces. The platform relies on extensive integrations and APIs to provide streamlined and optimized process management in logistically complex industries.
True to its name, NoBroker helps people buy or lease an apartment without having to deal with brokers and, by extension, brokerage fees. It also offers additional features like financial services (assistance with paying rent, for example) and home services like cleaning, painting, and packing — all of which are available to people even if they have not rented or purchased a home through the NoBroker platform. The startup is headquartered in Bangalore and operates in several major Indian cities, including Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai.
CRED is an app that rewards its users for paying their credit card bills on time with access to exclusive rewards and experiences from prominent brands. The members-only platform also allows users to analyze their credit score and manage multiple cards, tracking their due date reminders, spend patterns and other usage statistics using artificial intelligence. CRED is backed by VC giants like Tiger Global, Insight Partners and GIC, and reportedly processes about a third of all credit card payments in India by volume.
Fi.Money is a financial app with a built-in savings account provided by its banking partner, Federal Bank. Founded by a team of former Google Pay executives, the platform also allows users to invest in mutual funds and high-interest products, track their expenses and earn rewards when they practice positive financial behavior. The startup also has its own credit card, with perks like no minimum balance fees, cashback rewards and airline miles.
Neobank Open makes it easier for small and medium-sized businesses to send, receive and reconcile payments. The app offers a variety of built-in tools for goods and services tax invoicing, links for collecting online payments, payroll management, and expense management. Backed by investors like Google, Tiger Global and Visa, Open partners with State Bank of India, Axis Bank, ICICI Bank and several other major Indian financial institutions, allowing businesses to handle payments directly through the platform.
Founded in 2020 by two Stanford University dropouts, Zepto has made a name for itself in the grocery delivery industry, garnering investments from Nexus Venture Partners, Y Combinator and others. Zepto is one of many grocery delivery startups in India, competing with prominent names like Swiggy and Dunzo. But its main selling point is that it can get food to customers in 10 minutes or less, thanks to its network of dark stores across the cities in which it operates. The company is headquartered in Mumbai and has large offices in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Delhi and Chennai.
Lokal is a news app that makes local news in India more accessible and digitally focused, targeting more than 900 million non-English speaking users in India. The company has a network of freelance reporters who produce original reporting around current affairs of local towns and cities in their regional language. Lokal also has a classifieds section, a job-searching tool and even a dating service, where users can get matched based on caste, location and common interests. The Y Combinator-backed startup operates in three of India’s most concentrated states: Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Uttar Pradesh.
Flipkart is one of the largest e-commerce platforms in India, competing neck to neck against Amazon for the top spot. Over the years, the company has garnered support from major investors, including Walmart, Tiger Global and Softbank Vision Fund 2; and has made a series of investments of its own in various India-based startups. Flipkart’s main headquarters is in Bangalore, and it has several other offices throughout the country.
Founded by several former Flipkart executives, udaan brings manufacturers, traders, retailers and wholesalers onto one platform. The company helps streamline the B2B market process by providing a place where small businesses can easily source from a large selection of products, while manufacturers and farmers can market their products across the country. The startup serves more than 3 million retailers and small businesses, according to its website, and has signed up thousands of brands, including Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Procter & Gamble.
Swiggy is one of India’s top food delivery startups, partnering with more than 150,000 restaurants across some 500 cities nationwide. Over the years, the company has also become a prominent investor in the region, backing local standouts like restaurant management platform UrbanPiper and bike taxi startup Rapido, and even acquiring companies like reservation app Dineout and retail logistics startup LYNK. As of 2023, Swiggy is valued at nearly $8 billion and is said to be eyeing an IPO for 2024.
Slick is a social media platform made specifically for college students. The app allows users to post anonymously on open forums and engage with other users through memes and polls. It also has a feature called Connect where users can swipe through a selection of potential matches and select those they want to be friends with. Since launching in December of 2022, the app has gained more than a million users across thousands of schools and colleges in India.
Fintech Perfios provides real-time credit underwriting services for banks and non-banking financial institutions, allowing them to automate their loan decisions, assess customers’ financial worthiness and aggregate data for APIs. Leveraging AI and machine learning techniques, the platform is also able to learn on its own, and can forecast trends in new markets. Perfios is backed by Indian private equity firm Kedaara Capital, as well as Warburg Pincus and Bessemer Venture Partners, and it operates in more than a dozen geographies across India, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. The startup reportedly has plans to go public by 2025.
Edtech Byju’s offers classes to a wide variety of learners, from children at the beginning of their education to adults looking to upgrade their professional skills. Subjects include basic math, coding, reading and music. In 2023, the startup launched three new AI models to enhance the quality of its services and provide more personalization for its students. Founded in 2011 in Bangalore, Byju’s is now available in more than 100 countries and has more than 150 million registered users, according to the company.
Scripbox is a wealth management company that uses AI to offer customized investment solutions that help users meet their unique financial goals. With customers in more than 2,500 cities in India, the app’s offerings range from mutual funds to Indian and international equities. It also offers several calculator tools to help users make smarter decisions about their savings, investment and retirement strategies.
Online learning platform Unacademy helps students prepare for competitive college and graduate school entrance exams. Students can watch live video lectures taught by a stable of professional educators, and later engage in virtual sessions to review topics in more detail, as well as take practice tests. The startup began its journey in 2010 as a YouTube channel, and is now worth some $3 billion, with financial backing from Tiger Global, General Atlantic and Softbank Vision Fund 2.
Backed by Y Combinator and Sequoia Capital, Razorpay is a digital payments technology provider that allows companies to accept payments, make payments and offer loans. The company also provides tools for managing marketplaces as well as internal processes like payroll compliance.
Flipkart-backed Ninjacart connects retailers and restaurants with produce farmers and traders on its online marketplace. The company is considered to be India’s largest fresh produce supply chain platform, ensuring that farmers get better prices for their fruits and vegetables on one end, and retailers have food delivered quickly and efficiently on the other.
CoinSwitch is a platform where users in India can buy more than 100 different cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum and Ripple. The app is Rupee-powered, and is capable of supporting customers in five regional languages in addition to English, offering voice assistance, app explainers and live chat in Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, Bengali and Marathi. With more than 19 million users, CoinSwitch is India’s largest crypto app, according to the company’s website, and counts Andreessen Horowitz, Tiger Global and Sequoia Capital India among its investors.
