The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) have been celebrated across the country for long. Known to be giving India some of its top-notch engineers, IITs are the all-time favourites of students and their parents.
Over time, many of the IITians have taken the leap and started their known companies. As a result, IITs now feature in the list of universities churning out maximum numbers of unicorn founders.
Unicorns are the privately-held startups valued at $1 billion (Rs 66,000 crore) or more.
As per Sage, a UK-based accounting and payroll company, IITs are the fourth highest unicorn founders producing universities in the world.
While US-based Stanford University claimed the top rank with 51 unicorn founders, Harvard University followed it with 37. Third spot is occupied by University of California with 18 unicorn founders and IITs followed with 12 founders.
At present, India is home to ten such startups by IITians namely, Flipkart, Snapdeal, Shopclues, Ola, Zomato, Quickr, Paytm, InMobi, Hike and Mu Sigma.
"Good students and faculty is a given with IITs. What is probably the differentiator with IIT Delhi is the culture of the institute which has been cultivated over several decades. They are more connected to the society and have a deep awareness of the problems that exist. Hence, they are able to look for solutions and become entrepreneurs," said IIT Delhi director V Ramgopal Rao, who is an alumnus of IIT Bombay.
"Over last 5-7 years, each of the IITs have made significant strides in creating the right ambience to promote entrepreneurs. From bringing in seasoned alumni to assist startups to encouraging students and alumni to take the entrepreneurial plunge, setting up mentoring clinics and offering assistance of professors, a disciplined effort has been made to create the right structures to foster startups and their founders," said Suresh Kalpathi of Kalpathi Investments, an alumnus of IIT Madras.
In terms of countries that have most number of unicorns, US tops the list with 144, followed by China with 47. India grabs the third spot with 10 unicorns.
