(The Weekend Insight) - Beyond the Baniya: Who’s Really Building India’s Startups?

In today’s deep-dive, we will look at how India’s startup world is changing who gets to build big businesses. For a long time, business in India was mostly done by a few communities such as Banias, Marwaris, and Parsis. If your family ran a shop or factory, you were expected to do the same. But that has changed. Today, many startup founders come from different backgrounds - teachers' children, farmers' kids, small-town students. What caused this shift? This is the story of how startups gave a chance to people who were never part of the business world before.

If you walked into a boardroom in the 1970s, chances are you’d find a Marwari or a Gujarati sitting at the head of the table. Maybe a Sindhi. Or a Parsi. India’s business world, for decades, was run by a handful of communities that had turned entrepreneurship into a way of life.

But walk into a startup pitch in Bengaluru or a demo day in Delhi today, and you’ll see something very different. A Tamil Brahmin engineer. A farmer’s son from Andhra. A teacher’s kid from Kerala. And yes, still a few Marwaris and Banias - but they’re now one of many, not the only ones.

So what changed?

Let’s rewind a bit. Historically, certain communities like the Banias, Marwaris, and Parsis ran the show. They traded in textiles, ran factories, funded ships, and built massive companies. They didn’t just know business - they breathed it.

Why them? Simple. Caste and culture.

For centuries, Indian society nudged Banias towards business. If you were born into a Bania or Marwari household, you probably sat behind a shop counter as a teenager, helped your uncle track stock, and learned the art of negotiation before you knew trigonometry. If you were a Brahmin? You became a priest. Or a teacher. Or a government officer.

By the time India gained independence, this had become the norm. And it stuck.

The result? A business landscape dominated by trading communities, with access to capital, networks, and generational wisdom. The average Indian startup founder of the 1980s looked a lot like his father and grandfather - same surname, same city, same connections.

Cracks Begin to Show

But by the late 1980s, India’s economy was shifting. And in the 1990s, liberalisation changed everything. New industries were emerging - tech, telecom, finance - and they didn’t require you to be born into business. They just needed smart people with new ideas.

That’s when three kinds of entrepreneurs began to emerge:

• The Shop-to-Factory folks: Traditional business families upgrading to modern industries.

• The Office-to-Factory crowd: Engineers, civil servants’ kids, and professionals using their skills to start companies.

• The Field-to-Factory players: Farming and artisanal communities investing savings and starting new ventures.

While the old guard merely got bigger, the new guard exploded in size and influence. The internet helped, and so did venture capital.

The New Faces of Indian Founders

Let’s talk names.

• Narayana Murthy was born into a Kannada Brahmin family. He built Infosys from scratch, borrowing money from his wife. His parents expected a stable job, and he gave them a billion-dollar company.

• Byju Raveendran, a schoolteacher’s son from a village in Kerala, turned his tutoring gig into one of the biggest edtech startups in the world.

• Sridhar Vembu, from a farming family in Tamil Nadu, went to Princeton and came back to build Zoho.

• Sachin and Binny Bansal, both from the Bania community, used their IIT training to build Flipkart - a business that looked very different from their family’s old trading roots.

• Ritesh Agarwal, a Marwari from a small Odisha town, dropped out of college to build OYO, one of India’s best-known brands.

• Vijay Shekhar Sharma, a teacher’s son from a small town in UP, founded Paytm and changed India’s fintech landscape.

• Falguni Nayar, a former investment banker from a Gujarati family, launched Nykaa in her 50s and proved age (and gender) are no barriers.

• Kalpana Saroj, born into a Dalit family and married off at 12, built a diversified empire, including Kamani Tubes and her ventures in real estate and film production.

These are just a few of the many faces shaping the startup world. Some come from trading families, but many didn’t.

What the Numbers Say

Let’s look at some real data:

As of May 2025, India has 119 unicorn startups. And here’s the community spread among the founders:

• Brahmins: 62 unicorns have at least one Brahmin co-founder

• Banias: 60 of them have a Bania co-founder

• Khatris: 55 unicorns have Khatri representation

• Others: A growing mix of Dalits, OBCs, and farming communities

The startup arena isn’t being run by just one group anymore. It’s shared real estate. For instance, founders like Kalpana Saroj from a Dalit background and Shashank Kumar of DeHaat, who hails from a farming family in Bihar, have broken into what was once considered elite business territory. These stories reflect how startup success is now more about ideas and execution than inherited networks.

Many of these founders didn’t grow up in metro cities. Tier-2 and Tier-3 towns such as Bhubaneswar, Indore, and Coimbatore - are now breeding unicorns. Access to education, better internet, and role models have flattened the playing field.

Reasons Behind This Shift

A few things:

• Education: IITs, IIMs, and other colleges became launchpads for kids from all communities.

• Tech: Starting up got cheaper. A laptop and coding knowledge to start with.

• Investors: VC firms backed first-time founders, not just rich family heirs.

• Culture change: Business was no longer a "Bania thing." It became an ambition thing.

• Role Models: Founders like Sharma, Nayar, and Murthy inspired others from similar backgrounds.

Even parents changed. The same folks who once said, "Beta, naukri chahiye," are now okay with, "Beta, startup shuru karo."

Still, Some Walls Remain

The truth is, it's not a level playing field. Most unicorn founders still come from middle or upper-middle-class homes. They had access to good education, internet, mentors. Dalits, Adivasis, and many women still face big hurdles, not only in capital access but also in perception. Some investors unconsciously back people who 'look' like successful founders, often skewing toward elite urban circles.

There’s also a geographic skew. While Tier-2 cities are emerging, many Tier-4 and rural talents remain untapped. A brilliant founder in Barmer or Dibrugarh still faces logistical and psychological friction that someone in Bengaluru doesn’t.

And there’s a class gap. The kids most likely to build startups today aren’t poor. They’re aspirational, yes. But also privileged in subtle ways - private schooling, English fluency, city exposure.

But things are changing. People like Kalpana Saroj or Upasana Taku are proof that grit breaks glass ceilings. And with more support, like targeted VC funds, government incubators, and mentor platforms - this change could accelerate.

A Startup Culture of Its Own

The best part is that today's startup teams judge people by their abilities, not their social standing. You’ll see a Marwari marketer, a Tamil engineer, a Bengali designer, and a Rajasthani sales head - all building together. Coworking spaces, WhatsApp groups, and Discord servers have replaced family shops as the new hubs of entrepreneurship.

In many ways, the startup world has created its own tribe: one that values hustle over heritage. A strong founding team isn't made of relatives, but of people who have faith in each other, are skilled, and share the same goals.

A Cultural Reset

Startups are also changing family narratives. Earlier, being a businessman meant owning a shop or factory. Today, it can mean building a SaaS company, launching a fintech app, running a D2C brand, or designing an AI-powered chatbot.

For past generations, a secure job was the biggest goal. But this generation is ambitious and often work on their own projects, like late-night coding. Students in engineering colleges talk about MVPs and PMF instead of GATE and CAT.

The stigma once attached to business, especially in intellectual or farming communities, is fading. Being a founder is now aspirational, almost heroic. The family that once said, "don’t risk it," now proudly says, "my son runs a startup."

And unlike traditional businesses, startups welcome experimentation. Failures aren’t shameful, they’re learning milestones.

This evolution isn’t just economic, but emotional. Parents cry at product launches. Teachers forward press features. Society is slowly learning to respect builders.

Conclusion

In the old days, business was inherited. Now, it’s earned. It doesn’t matter if your dad was a shopkeeper or a schoolteacher. To succeed, just build something good, solve a problem people have, and get others to back you.

The Indian startup story is being written by many hands. And that’s what makes it worth reading.

No matter your surname, the corner office could have your nameplate on it - just like it did for Ritesh Agarwal from a small town in Odisha. If they could do it, so can you!!