[YS Exclusive] UnboxingBLR Foundation unveils its ‘Bengaluru Rising’ report at Bengaluru Tech Summit

UnboxingBLR Foundation’s ‘Bengaluru Rising’ report was launched by Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah; Deputy Chief Minister D. K. Shivakumar, and Priyank Kharge, Minister for Information Technology, along with UnboxingBLR Co-founders Prashant Prakash and Malini Goyal at the Bengaluru Tech Summit.

The report provided a comprehensive analysis of the city’s growth and transformation, and highlighted its evolution as one of India’s primary economic powerhouses, the company said.

It emphasised Bengaluru’s growing consumer base, high investment in infrastructure, and thriving culture, underscoring its appeal as a top destination for young professionals, tech entrepreneurs, and global investors, positioning Bengaluru in close competition with metro giants like Delhi and Mumbai.

The report dove into understanding Bengaluru through three lenses—in comparison with its past; other top Indian cities like Delhi, Bombay, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune, Kolkata; and other global tech hubs.

It explored Bengaluru from six angles— the consumer view, the economic view, the demographic view, the liveable view, the tech view, and the global view.

The report, citing Tracxn data, revealed that the city ranks at second position in the number of startups founded in the past decade, with 14,071 of them originating from the city, while Delhi NCR tops with 21,274 startups.

Discussing potential reasons for this, Malini Goyal, CEO & Co-founder of UnboxingBLR, told YourStory, “While Bengaluru is overwhelmingly services, the Delhi NCR region has a diversified ecosystem… and Delhi NCR has historically had manufacturing, and other parts.”

However, Bengaluru also ranks second in the number of deadpooled startups, topped by Delhi NCR and followed by Greater Mumbai, Hyderabad, and Pune. Deadpooled startups are startups that have shut down.

The report also ranked Bengaluru as the top candidate in job listings in the seven key top-end technologies that are currently in demand or will be in demand in the new future such as Artificial Intelligence, Natural Language Processing, Robotics, and Blockchain, based on LinkedIn data. It also found that corresponding job postings in most other cities did not even amount to half of the number of roles posted in Bengaluru.

The city has been consistently ranked between 15 and 20 in the Startup Genome rankings of global startup ecosystems since 2015. It stood toe-to-toe with Sydney and ranked 20 in 2023.

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The city also ranks first in the ability of startups to find VC funding with nearly 50% of Bengaluru startups getting VC funds.

The report’s collated Tracxn data also revealed that in terms of equity funding received from VC funds between 2014 and 2023, Bengaluru startups have received $66.3 billion, which is not just the highest, but also nearly equivalent to the sum received by Delhi NCR ($38.3 billion) , Greater Mumbai ($18.2 billion), and Pune ($5.3 billion) put together.

“While all cities have seen a sharp decline in road accidents within the city, the pace of decline in Bengaluru is the third lowest,” explained Goyal. According to her, the data speaks volumes about the city's infrastructure, and that the city road infrastructure has been constrained. The report also highlighted that the number of deaths in road accidents have increased in the city.

Although Bengaluru has fewer students than Delhi and Mumbai, with 1,262 colleges, it has more colleges than other cities with a majority being set up on or after 2000, the report noted. Greater Mumbai follows, with 957.

Another notable finding of the report (in collaboration with Quess Corp) revealed that among blue-collar workers on the Quess payroll, Bengaluru had the highest share of women workers in June 2018, of 29%. In June 2023, it was second, with 30%.

Delving into the reason behind formulating the report, Goyal said, “I was working on my book, on our book Unboxing Bengaluru and realised that the last government data that we had was from 2011. However, Bengaluru has grown massively post-2011. The report tries to map the development and serve as a base for the findings in the book, as its contents “could be challenged.”

“We wanted to understand India’s top cities, which is the geographical frame that impacts decision making, and provide viewers with a 360-degree view of the cities at multiple levels.”

The report collated data found from various sources such as the government, regulatory bodies, and digital platform data which has collated (anonymised and confidential) data from people.

The report is set to be an annual exercise, and the team has partnered with How India Lives, a data analytics firm founded by ex-data journalists.