Nasscom identifies top 50 innovative startups and majority of them are B2B

Majority of the startups that will shape the tomorrow of business are B2B. Nearly 50% of the companies in the latest list of startups under Nasscom Emerge 50, which is a yearly exercise to identify and showcase 50 most innovative, emerging IT product startups, are in B2B business.

These startups are already serving global clients, further approving the development of enterprise clients centered startups in the nation.

Last year, less than one third of the shortlisted startups were in B2B space. This year, however, nearly half of the shortlisted startups were in the B2B business. In addition to it, some B2B players like EdGE Networks and SirionLabs made it to the top 10 'League of Ten' list.

"Not many Indian companies are out there in the global B2B space. We want to build our company and sell in the global markcompeting with the likes of IBM, Oracle, SAP, etc," Ajay Agrawal, CEO of SirionLabs, a Gurgaon-based enterprise software maker told ET.

Industry specialists have been proclaiming the development of the B2B space comparable to B2C for quite a while now.

"B2B startups focused on the global market are doing well. India is emerging as a hub for SaaS startups that cater to the mid-and-small customer segment in the US," Sharad Sharma, founder of software think tank iSPIRT told ET.

This year, nearly the list was shortlisted from more than 450 nominations and an increment in startup activity in tier-II and three tier-III cities was also observed.

Sangeeta Gupta, senior vice president at Nasscom highlighted several other trends seen among the chosen startups.

"We saw a much more nichefocused startups than startups that were doing similar things. Another differentiator this year was the focus on core technologies such as AI (artificial intelligence), cloud (cloud computing) and IoT (internet of things)," she told ET.
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