India's Startup Journey Gets Into The Faster Lane With Flipkart, Myntra Deals

India startups are on a roll, catching up with China’s lead after long being in the shadows.
The latest deal making in India certainly showcases the trend. Indian e-commerce company Flipkart just raised a large $210 million sum from Russian investors DST Global as well as returning backers Tiger Global, Naspers and others. The new financing follows a recent move by Flipkart to acquire fashion retailing site Myntra, which also is venture backed.
These developments follow the course of China’s own startup journey. Copy many of the most successful business models from the west and tweak them for the local market, raise money mostly from overseas venture investors, ramp up quickly and either consolidate or go public.
India has gone down the same path. Like China, India has startups that are well funded in travel, e-commerce, gaming and mobile advertising. China has Ctrip; India has MakeMyTrip. China has Dangdang; India has Flipkart. China has Madhouse; India has inMobi — and so on.
Some of the same venture firms have been doing deals in both markets too — Kleiner Perkins, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Sequoia Capital, NEA, Accel – to name a few.

Myntra’s CEO Mukesh Bansal
Startup Asia photo: Rebecca Fannin

But India has lacked star power on Wall Street, where only one venture-backed startup — MakeMyTrip — has gone public while China has racked up the IPOs in the U.S. The next step in India’s startup journey could be to have more public listings in New York that could lead to a generation of business heroes that in turn spark more innovation and inspiration from India’s talented entrepreneurs.
It’s a trend I predicted three years ago in my book Startup Asia, which featured both Flipkart and Myntra as examples. For more background on the e-commerce sector heating up in India, read my earlier post at Forbes:  Startup India Flips Out Over E-commerce.

Now with new leadership in India, this trend could accelerate into the fast lane.