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The SaaS capital of India, Chennai is fast becoming one of India’s key startup hubs. 

Between January and June 2021, Chennai attained the 6th spot among the eight Tier-I cities in terms of the number of deals (17), as well as the amount of funding ($73.8 million) raised, data by YS Research reveals.

From January 2015 to June 2021, Chennai startups have raised a total of $1.6 billion across 199 deals. While the maximum concentration of deals is at the early stage, the amount of funding is highest at the growth stage.

The city is already home to three SaaS unicorns — Chargebee, Zoho, and Freshworks. The top sectors the startups operate in include fintech, enterprise tech and deeptech, with automotive, new-age tech, logistics tech, retail/consumer brand, and social being emerging sectors.

Amid the pandemic, investors have also been testing waters in different niche sectors, giving rise to a number of early-stage deals.

The Interview

ERPs are often looked at as a legacy product but in the era of cloud-first solutions and open APIs, ERP helps mid-sized companies become large enterprises.

Sachin Dante, Senior Director – Extended Applications and Krishna Kanth, Senior Director – R&D from e-Empasys talk about how enterprise business applications prove to be the most modern and resilient solutions in the era of cloud-first and open APIs. Read more.

Editor’s Pick: Building a household furniture brand

Pritika Singh noted that the furniture market in India lacked modern and design forward furniture and decided to start Mohh.

Mohh offers a range of living room and outdoor furniture including sustainable solutions, all designed and manufactured in India and priced between Rs 3,000 and Rs 45,000. Read more.

Startup Spotlight

Helping Indian SMEs with influencer marketing

From finding the right influencer to executing the campaign, Kanishk Kanakia and Nikhil Kothari found that there were plenty of challenges when it came to SMEs trying their hand at social media influencer marketing.

To solve this pain point, the duo launched Opportune, a platform that delivers data-driven influencer marketing to Indian brands across verticals. Read more.

News & Updates

Before you go, stay inspired with… 

“This [a large number of Special Economic Zones (SEZ) in Chennai], coupled with fast-paced infrastructure development and a strong IT talent base, is attracting more startups to the region.”

— Rohini Prakash, Founder, Tomorrow Capital

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