Many founders say Mumbai’s costly real estate has made the city inhospitable. When I was researching my book on Bengaluru, Harshil Mathur, who incubated Razorpay in Rajasthan, told me about the pay-it-forward culture in Bengaluru that makes it special. Many talked about how the ecosystem supports them through their volatile startup journeys. Tarun Mehta, who started Ather Energy at IIT-Madras and later moved to Bengaluru, said Flipkart’s Sachin Bansal took a risky bet on him and funded Ather Energy in 2014 when Mehta had almost given up.
Young techies offer their own reasons why they prefer Bengaluru. They talk about job opportunities, growth prospects and fatter pay packets. For many women, the safety factor (in a relative sense) is a big one. For fresh graduates, Bengaluru gives them a taste of freedom away from parents. The culture in the city of ubiquitous PGs and co-living as flatmates offers them a semblance of college life with financial independence. For globetrotters, Bengaluru is a favourite. A 2022 Bloomberg report names it among the top six emerging cities for expats globally. Of course, the good weather and the cosmopolitan culture get talked about all the time.
If I had to do a SWOT analysis of Bengaluru, I would say it is “2G hardware, 5G software", and that is what makes it India’s startup capital.
First Published: Jun 26, 2025, 11:54
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