Optimistic about startups, funding challenges are cyclical: Kris Gopalakrishnan

HYDERABAD

Indian industry leader and Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan on Thursday said he remains optimistic about startups and the funding challenges that some of them are facing is cyclical.

Venture capital funds have money, but the economically challenging times globally, on account of a war, rising inflation and from a crude oil perspective, as well as a muted growth, has indeed affected funding to startups, especially later stage startups. However, it is not a lack of money with investors but due to issues over finding the right valuation of the startups and finding growth in such an environment, he said at a media interaction following opening of the Confederation of India Industry’s Centre of Excellence for Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Startups (CII CIES) at T-Hub here.

Stating that these are cyclical, Mr.Gopalakrishnan said he firmly believed that India will become the second best location for startups, a level up from now. “I am very optimistic about the opportunity for startups in India and the funding challenge is temporary thing [will] go away in 12-18 months’ timeframe,” he said.

CII CIES has been established in partnership with Telangana government and his family’s Pratiksha Trust. Mr. Gopalakrishnan, who is chairman of the CoE, said the new centre will source problem statements of CII members and identify startups who can address them.

CII in a release said an industry-led initiative, the facility will work to bridge critical gaps such as capacity, resources and linkages, through targeted programmes and interventions. The programmes will include training, incubation and acceleration for startups and corporate engagement for innovation and scale up agenda. It will also work with startups to create, incubate and accelerate within the corporate offices and family office engagements in the long-run.