The world’s brightest under 30 Indian entrepreneurs: Forbes
That age is not a criteria for success has been proven by these forty five Indians and Indian origin youngsters who have earned their places in the Forbes ‘30 Under 30’ list, featuring 600 of the brightest young minds in the world, across various segments – all of whom are below 30 years of age. Among these are youngsters who have passed out of Ivy League colleges and are now working as top management executives in various companies, and those who have taken the leap and set up their own ventures.
Here we take a look at the young entrepreneurs among these forty five powerful young Indians:
Ritesh Agarwal: The founder and CEO of Oyo Rooms dropped out of college to set up his own venture, Oravel Stays, modeled after Airbnb, in 2012, which became Oyo Rooms in 2013. At 22, Ritesh Agarwal is one of the youngest CEOs in the country and the first Asian to receive the Thiel fellowship in 2013. This is what Forbes has to say about the young achiever, “In a country that lacks a steady supply of budget hotel chains, Oyo has developed a network of 2,200 small hotels in 100 cities across India.”
Gagan Biyani and Neeraj Berry: The 28 year old Indian Americans are the co-founders of mobile meals on demand service, Sprig. The app was founded in 2013, with a seed funding of USD 1.2 million. The company later raised USD 45 million, led by Greylock Partners and Social Capital. The app allows its users to order healthy meals, where the ingredients are sourced locally, with a focus on seasonal and sustainable food. Gagan Biyani is also the co-founder of Udemy, an online learning marketplace.
Anoop Jain – The recipient of the 2014 Waislitz Global Citizen Award, 28 year old Anoop Jain is the founding director of Humanure Power Project in Bihar, which builds toilets, collects human waste and uses methane coming off excrement to create clean water. He launched his project in July 2014, with a seed funding of USD 30,000, which he had won through the Dell Social Innovation Challenge in 2012. His work aligns with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Swachh Bharat mission of having a toilet in every household by 2019.
Shruti Shah: The 27 year old Indian American is the co-founder of Move Loot, a market place for furniture which accepts old furniture that customers want to sell, and sells it for them. The San Francisco based start up was launched with a seed funding of USD 2.8 million, raised with the help of Indiegogo and Y Combinator’s startup boot camp.
Sampriti Bhattacharyya: The 28 year old MIT mechanical engineering student is the founder of Hydroswarm, which develops underwater drones that help scan the sea for lost planes and measure oil spills or radiation levels in the sea. In 2015, Sampriti Bhattacharyya won USD 50,000 at the MassChallenge, an annual USD 1 million global startup competition and accelerator programme.
Anjali Kundra, and Nikhil Kundra: Siblings Anjali, 29, and Nikhil Kundra, 26, are the co-founders of Partender, a bar inventory software system that digitises the bar inventory process. Their software has helped bar owners up their profits, as the time taken to do a bar inventory has been reduced from six hours to 15 minutes, post installing the software.
Ravi Parikh: Indian American Ravi Parikh is the co-founder of Heap, a web/mobile analytics tool that captures user interaction on a website or mobile app. Heap raised USD 2 million in 2013, and has grown five fold since then. The 27 year old Parikh is a Stanford computer science graduate and he co-founded Heap with his fellow Stanfordian Matin Movassate.
Shashank Samala: 23 year old Shashank Samala is the co-founder of Tempo Automation, a company that provides electronics manufacturing services. Through the website, electronic designers can upload their designs onto Tempo, and they are produced in its automated factory.
Aradhya Malhotra: Social entrepreneur and video game producer Aradhya Malhotra is the co-founder and Director of Technology at Skyless Game Studios. The company designs video games for education, social impact and philanthropic causes. The 25 year old is a graduate of Computer Science from Drexel University.
Advait Shinde: 25 year old Advait Shinde co-founded GoGuardian along with Aza Steel and Todd Mackey in 2014. The company provides web filtering services and Chromebook security management in schools. Based in Los Angeles, the company connects around 2.3 million students and 20,000 educators with its software.
