Local to Global Ambition: Indian Firms Bet On Innovation and Expansion Indian startups are now eyeing the global markets while maintaining a sizable presence in the country.

Indian startups are now going global. They are breaking the myth that Indians cannot build products or services that do well outside. And it's important to note that these startups also have a sizable presence in the Indian market, aligning themselves with the Make in India program.

The global expansion of Indian companies is driven by their entry into diverse and complex international markets. It's worth mentioning that these firms are operating across critical sectors, including logistics, edtech, mobile adtech, healthtech, mobility and many more. Firms such as Zoho and Freshworks, Lenskart (in retail) and Paytm (fintech) along with Chalo Mobility (mobility), and others give an overview of this diversity. These companies have to navigate through the complex international regulatory landscape, complex cross-border frameworks and logistics, and of course, the intense competition from the local companies.

Another such Indian company that has gone deeper in the global markets is Addverb, a robotics and automation firm. The company operates in 27 countries with four subsidiaries, spread across the US, Europe, Australia and Singapore.

Addverb CEO and cofounder Sangeet credits the talent and credibility of Indian software engineers, success in the Indian market, and word of mouth for the company's expansion into the global market. He added that the company focused on getting the best talent regardless of their country of origin.

"...whether our Chief Design Officer, our Chief Manufacturing Officer, both come from outside India, but also in the other countries where we operate, 80% to 85% of our people are from that country, which again adds to the trust and therefore to the revenue," Sangeet added while speaking at a panel discussion at the recently held Entrepreneur India summit in New Delhi.

On the similar lines, Servify is also another brand that has gone global. The startup is essentially a product lifecycle management platform for brands, focusing on improving after-sales service through its technology. In its early days, the brand was seen by critics as an afterthought and cost-center. Servify, however, went on to do well in the Indian market as well abroad.

"Historically it was insurers who were selling those solutions, and we said, look, we will do all the heavy lifting because it's a regulated business. We will manage the regulation in terms of getting the licenses. It's a digital service that you offer. Imagine in India over 200,000 outlets sell handsets or electronic products. Making that product available digitally is a lot of heavy lifting. Then getting the entire ecosystem on a common platform, collecting money from customers, ensuring that Amazon-like experience or Uber-like experience," he said during the panel discussion.

"So we said we will manage all of that, we need your supply chain support and your brand trust. And I think that we delivered in India, and when that happened again in a market like he mentioned just now, when you do it in India, where scale is extremely voluminous, the challenges are even more where you have some of the challenging customers who will try to break the system before you can even plan for the right process… it's quite natural our customers who are global customers said, oh, can you also do that in the US? Can you also do that in Europe? Can you also do that in the Middle East? And I think that's how we started growing," he added.

Abhishek of Recykal, a tech startup providing digital solutions for sustainability, connecting brands, government agencies, recyclers, aggregators, and more, tells the story of how they decided to go global.

"...when we all founders sat together in a room and we decided what we should do, one question we asked ourselves was, are we ready? Are we ready for the global market? The realization was that our country is a combination of 20 plus countries because every state operates differently into the waste management and recycling program, because there is a lot of friction in the ecosystem supply chain. We realized we haven't built for, haven't catered the country well, and no point distracting ourselves going outside because a lot of customization is needed, a lot of changes are needed. So we decided let's cater to the country first and then we can think about a global expansion," he said during the panel discussion.

That said, India's evolution from being a service centric hub to becoming a product builder is driven by firms like Addverb, Servify, and Recykal, among others. While keeping services, now GCC in its a newer avatar, as the strength, Indian companies are also excelling at navigating through the global regulatory landscape, which varies region to region. Moreover, companies like Addverb and Ultrahuman showcase India's prowess in the deeptech space, which has remained out of the radar of VCs and conventional investors for a long time. How will these companies perform in the future as well as will more companies join the local to global campaign? We will eventually find out in a few years of the time. Though, the trajectory looks promising.

You can watch the full conversation on Entrepreneur India's YouTube channel.