Digital media is transforming indias traditional

opportunities for promising startups and identifies emerging trends and outlooks.
Digital media is transforming India’s traditional media giants, creating a digital support
system, and spawning a new generation of digital-only pure-play startups. Media
entrepreneurs in India are addressing the full spectrum of the digital media space: from
comics and cricket to marketing and messaging. The rise of digital ad spends is good for
digital content startups as well as entrepreneurs in mobile and online advertising.
Digital ad revenues in India are less than TV and print but greater than radio, OOH and
cinema. The online advertising market in India will touch Rs 7,000 crore in 2015, and will be
about seven percent of the overall advertising pie as compared to the global average of 15.5
cent, according to the Indian e-Retail report. Advertisers in India are spending 5-10 percent of
their advertising budgets on the Net, which along with print media is in growth mode. 76
percent of the online advertising market is captured by online travel, followed by eight
percent each by financial services transactions and e-retailing.

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE INDIAN STARTUP ECOSYSTEM
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The rise of such digital ad spends is good for digital content startups as well as
entrepreneurs in mobile and online advertising. There is still a major language gap in the
digital world: India has less than 150 million English literates, but over 56 percent of the Web
is in English. While concerned citizens have been agonising over lack of Indian language
content on the Net for years, the rise of the mobile Internet will be the tipping point.
Notable startups in this sector include ZipDial, Quikr, Octro, Hitwicket, Citizen Matters,
Magzter, Newshunt, News in Shorts, Sokrati, Twaang, and Perdix.
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Significant transformations are occurring in the organisational world and business
ecosystem, which open up opportunities for startups in B2B (business to business), B2E
(business to employee) and B2B2C (business to business to customers/consumers)
products. SMAC technologies (social, mobile, analytics, cloud), AI, and ML are disrupting big
business and enabling agile strategies for a new generation of enterprises and small and
medium-sized businesses though these are early days still for blockchain.
Notable startups in the space include Freshworks, MuSigma, Capillary Technologies
(Facebook’s first acquisition in India) , myNoticePeriod.com, Wingify, Fareye, Ramyam
Intelligence Labs, Flutura, AirWoot, Druva, Dexetra and kPoint.
Bengaluru is now acknowledged as the ‘SMAC Valley’ of the east, like Silicon Valley.
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CHALLENGES FACED BY INDIAN STARTUPS
To outsiders, the startup ecosystem appears to be a land of great opportunity, but a peek
inside will show it is that and so much more, not all of which is hunky dory. Startups face
myriad challenges from all quarters – government regulations, fund raising, lack of
mentoring, scaling correctly, managing cashflow and even finding the right employees. In
forthcoming issues, we will discuss each of these challenges in greater detail. Here is an