Find Partners for startup India

Biswarup Gooptu, ET Bureau

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NEW DELHI: A clutch of Indian startups have emerged as preferred partners of the country's banking sector, which is looking to the early-stage ventures to meet a number of its core needs.

Some of the country's largest banks, including State Bank of India, Axis Bank and HDFC, have now turned to ventures, such as Empays Payment Systems, iCreate Software and Vortex Engineering, for a plethora of services.

These range from big data analytics and facilitating instant money transfers to reaching out to India's rural and semi-urban populace.

"Banks are in the business of risk, but are also extremely risk averse. While they will look at value, costs and risks are equally critical. The hungrier they are, the more open they will be, " said Vivek Subramanyam, 39, co-founder and chief executive of iCreate Software.

And Subramanyam has been taking advantage of the Indian banking fraternity's desire to cut down on risk and non-performing assets while meeting global standards of governance.

"We were readymade providers in a sector dominated by the big guys, such as IBM and SAP. We were upstarts, but our proposition was powerful enough to get us to the table at least, " Subramanyam said.

An impressive roster of clients, along with a plucky attitude, has also helped the company attract risk capital investments. In 2012, iCreate, raised Rs 50 crore in Series B funding, led by Sequoia Capital, having raised Rs 15 crore from IDG Ventures India prior to that.

The existing solutions haven't always met the ever-changing requirements at the same pace. But the startups are changing that, because they come in without any baggage, " said TC Meenakshisundaram, partner, IDG Ventures India.

While Subramanyam did not disclose company financials, he said iCreate was on course to touch revenue of about Rs 250 crore by fiscal 2016. Next up are the company's plans to launch its products in the developed markets.

For Ravi Rajagopalan, 52, and Vijay Babu, 50, it is India's monolithic state-owned financial institutions that are on their radar.