Startup Outlook 2024 | Mridul Arora on Funding, Governance, IPOs | CNBCTV18

Mridul Arora (Partner, Elevation Capital) discussed the 2024 outlook for the Indian startup ecosystem with Shereen Bhan on CNBC-TV18’s first Young Turks episode of the year, alongside Vaibhav Domkundwar and Anicut Capital LLP's Ashvin Chadha.
He commented on the notable developments in 2023, emphasizing a shift toward high-quality execution, cost control, revenue scaling, and a path toward sustainable profitability - a trend that’s been set in motion and will likely persist.
Here are the key takeaways from the discussion as Mridul picked up the top trends for 2024 and beyond:
✦ “It's very heartening to see that in 2023, almost 40% of Indian unicorns were profitable. And we think in a short period of another 12 to 18 months, we'll have at least 15 to 20 more turning profitable.”
✦ “We don’t see any dearth of capital for the right founders with the right ideas and business models. Our focus is now really to double down on growth as long as there is PMF, and unit economics are figured out.”
✦ “The startup sector, by and large, has a fairly high standard of corporate governance. As a fund, the importance of robust corporate governance and robust portfolio support functions has always been there.”
✦ “We could see 5-10 startup IPOs this year. In the next 3-5 years, we should have anywhere between 35-40 listed tech companies from India, listed in India. That is something we should definitely aspire for."
✦ “We feel very excited about Spacetech as an emerging area, and we are spending enough time, effort and resources to build our knowledge and capability. And we feel like India has proven its prowess over many years on being able to design and deliver low-cost, high-quality outcomes. This is a very big area of focus for us, which could break out in 2024"
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Chapters
00:00 - Intro
02:28 - Profitability and Focus Areas
09:13 - Corporate Governance
17:44 - IPO Outlook
23:26 - Spacetech Focus