5 successful start-ups by IITians

New Delhi: With huge investments flowing into the start-up space in India, companies started by IITians have taken the nation by a storm in the past few years. The massive growth shown by companies such as Flipkart, Zomato, Ola, and Housing.com, is indicative of the kind of maturity and passion these grads from India's premier technological institute bring towards start-ups.If figures are something to go by, over the past 11 months, India's e-commerce firms (many of which are headed by IITians) have secured over $3.9 billion investment from investors including venture capitalists, private equity funds and banks. For instance, Flipkart has raised over $1 billion and Kunal Bahl-led Snapdeal has also secured about $1 billion.With an eye on future and hopes of floating their own ventures, many IITians are ready to let go of the big pay packages in order to start their own ventures. They believe if the venture is successful, valuations will follow.Here we take a look at five successful start-ups by alumni of India's premier engineering institute:Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, Flipkart In 2007, Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, alumni of IIT Delhi, founded India's largest e-tailer, Flipkart. They started the company as an online retailer of books with an initial investment of Rs 4 lakh from a flat in Bangalore. The duo quit their jobs with the world's largest online retailer Amazon.com to start Flipkart. The intension behind staring Flipkart was to make shopping easier. It now banks on technology to sell everything from apparels to consumer durables, and has its own logistics firm and is valued at nearly Rs. 10,000 crore.In his words, Sachin Bansal, describes Flipkart as a technology company that tends to do e-commerce.In May 2014, Flipkart bought a major stake in Myntra in a cash and stock deal that could value the company between $300-330 million (Rs 1,800-2,000 crore). The deal was supposed to take on rivals such as eBay, Amazon and Snapdeal.Rohit Bansal and Kunal Bahl, SnapdealIn 2010, Rohit Bansal (an IITian) along with his friend Kunal Bahl (a Wharton graduate) founded Snapdeal.com, which was a daily deal site at beginning. Soon after the company changed its model and started operating as an online marketplace for merchants and customers. With over 20,000 sellers, over 500 product categories, Snapdeal has placed itself among the top players in the e-commerce space. The company has strong financial backup by leading global investors like Intel Capital, eBay Inc. and Nexus Venture Partners.Snapdeal sees itself as a platform for manufacturers to do business. Its founders believe that it is not an e-commerce company but the one that facilitates e-commerce. And just like China's Alibaba, it hopes to create life-changing experiences for thousands of small businesses and millions of consumers in India using technology as a great socio-economic equaliser.Bhavesh Aggarwal, OlaBhavesh Aggarwal graduated from IIT Bombay (IIT-B) with an engineering degree in computer science and worked with the Microsoft Research India for a couple of years. Always looking to start something of his own, he came up with idea of Olacabs and started operations in December 2010 along with Ankit Bhati, a fellow alumnus from IIT-B.Bhavesh says the vision behind Ola was to provide hassle-free, reliable and technology-efficient car rental service to Indians. Ola offers convenient and quick cab services, both car rental and point-to-point, by leveraging technology. The company now offers services in cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai and Pune.Housing.comHousing.com was launched in 2012 by a group of 12 IIT-Bombay engineers. And inside its Powai office you'll see the collective thought of these engineers engraved on the wall — “We wanted something better, so we built it ourselves.” The less-than-two-year-old company was recently the biggest recruiter among start-ups, snapping up 45 students from IIT campuses this placement season. Recently, Japanese giant Softbank, along with other investors, pumped in $90 million into Housing.com to acquire minority stake.Sankalp Agrawal and Sanchit Garg, Travel TriangleTravel Triangle is an online travel service company IIT-Kharagpur graduate Sankalp Agrawal along with his friend Sanchit Garg (IIT-B). The duo hired Prabhat Gupta their third friend, who is also an IITian as a core development member.Agrawal quit his job with Adobe in 2010 to prepare for the venture. The firm, which started in a garage in Noida, has a business model that links customers with travel agents who offer the best deals.