A few VCs and other investors called up re this recent announcement regarding Google's $10B India Fund to see what it means for them and India. https://twitter.com/sundarpichai/status/1282598821504016386

We got chatting about the state of the startup ecosystem in India during Covid. What I heard was concerning.

I got curious and pinged some of my friends in the Angel & VC community across India, Singapore and Silicon Valley. Thanks to you who shared your opinions.

TL;DR Almost all in IN and SG said they are seeing a severe slowdown in the early stage startup ecosystem.

Interestingly, folks in Silicon Valley said the opposite — that Valley is on fire right now.

I guess this is a sign of the difference between a mature ecosystem and more developing ecosystems.

Focusing on India, some folks said they are seeing a slowdown by a factor of 2 to 4 in either new startup formation, or in startups getting pre-A or A deals done.

They said the slowdown in new startup formation and angel investment is because of Covid uncertainties and ...

... difficulty in building teams at early stage without in-person meetings.

To be sure, there is plenty of VC money waiting to be deployed. While VCs initially hunkered down to focus on their own portfolio rather than funding new ones, they are back in "wanting to deploy" mode.

However, the overall throughput of the pipeline seems to have certainly slowed in India. This is terrible. We need to build and fund these early stage startups.

Would-be founders: as Andreessen said for US, but even more applicable to India: https://a16z.com/2020/04/18/its-time-to-build/

Covid has in its wake brought new opportunities advancing people's digital habits by at least 5-10 years. New market forces and trends (GPT-3, Video collaboration, Account Aggregators, Online education, no/low code, just to name a few) have appeared/accelerated almost overnight.

If I can help a bit, I am going to. As a start, I am stepping up my angel funding activity and engaging more with my friends in the founder and investing community. My DMs are open if I can help in any manner. Please pass on to your founder friends and RT.

Thanks for sharing your views: @RajanAnandan @VikramV23 @abheek @rogerechen @semil @babak_hamadani @joshelman @bsomaia @pmalik @sanjaynath @kunalb11 @sompalchoudhury and many more.

If anyone is seeing something different, please do share.