Startup culture took place in India a few years ago, and now the startup growth in India is another significant achievement.

Punjab seems to be competing and catching up to India’s fast-developing startup ecosystem. The state’s capital city Chandigarh, in particular, has been a breeding ground for many successful start-ups which are creating history with their innovative solutions. The government, which was earlier focused on agriculture and sports, has now taken the lead in promoting their start-ups. 

Chandigarh’s startups are growing at a fast pace and many have been able to make news headlines at the national as well as international levels. Startup culture has gotten a great boost after Modi’s ‘Startup India’ campaign all across India. If we talk about Chandigarh, then it is one such city that has the caliber to become the next silicon valley of India. This is not just us, who believe in this wording but YourStory said the same in 2015. 

List of Top Startup Companies in Chandigarh.

We have listed the top ones from the tech field as well as the nontechnology side. 

1. Simba Beer

The company boasts of brewing authentic, flavorful beer unlike the beers produced on a large scale, its beers are made in small batches using finely crafted recipes, not formulas. The company states that it has spent months scouting for the finest malts and hops, created experimental batches to perfect the flavor, and thrown out all conventional wisdom. 

The Bhatia cousins latched on to an increasingly popular trend among youth—craft beer consumption. Simba launched in 2016 and three years later, the startup is one of the fastest growing home-grown craft beer brands in India with a presence across multiple states. In FY19, Simba had a turnover of ₹125 crore, which it hopes to double by the end of FY20. 

India, a predominantly strong beer market, offers potential for growth in the craft beer segment as numbers suggest the category is said to be growing at 40% annually, albeit on a smaller base. 

2. Just Herbs

Just Herbs is a line of pure, bespoke, and Ayurvedic results-driven skincare made from certified organic and wild crafted ingredients collected from across India. The brand stands for honesty (follows full ingredient disclosure) and purity (uses authentic Ayurvedic herbs without harmful commonplace cosmetic chemicals). 

Just Herbs presents an exciting and differentiated opportunity to have a meaningful play in Ayurveda-led beauty categories. 

A direct-to-customer company, Apcos Naturals was co-founded by Arush Chopra and Megha Sabhlok and Just Herbs is a bridge-to-luxury brand that sells a range of hair and skin care products made from plant ingredients and essential oils. While the brand garners a majority of its business through its own D2C website, it is also available on online marketplaces (Amazon, Flipkart, and Nykaa) and its exclusive offline stores in select cities.

The company clocked revenue of Rs 17.5 crore in FY21, more than double its revenues of Rs 8 crore in FY20.

3. ZappFresh

Founded in 2015 by Deepanshu Manchanda and Shruti Gochhwal, Zappfresh is a fresh meat brand that aims to ensure that all the products reaching the end consumer are fresh. Its mission is to keep raising the bar of the fresh meat experience for consumers in India. While the firm is headquartered in Gurugram, it has close associations with Chandigarh. 

DSM Fresh Foods Pvt Ltd, which runs an online fresh fish and meat retailer, posted a 25% growth in revenue and narrowed its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (Ebitda) losses in the just-ended financial year despite the pandemic forcing a major shift in business operations.

Revenue grew to about ₹70 crores in the year ended 31 March from ₹50 crores in FY21, which was marked by flat revenue growth, said Deepanshu Manchanda, chief executive officer, Zappfresh. The revenue growth happened despite a total closure of its business-to-business (B2B) vertical that earlier contributed around 35% to its revenue, Manchanda said.

Zappfresh earned B2B revenue from hotels and restaurants but was forced to shut the business at the onset of the covid-19 pandemic in 2020. “So the entire revenue, albeit remaining flat in fiscal 2020-21 came from our B2C business and all our sales happen direct-to-consumer (D2C),” Manchanda said. The Gurugram-based company’s Ebitda loss narrowed to about ₹2 crores in FY22 after expanding to ₹12 crores in FY21 from ₹9 crores in 2019-20. 

4. LetsShave

LetsShave.com offers a number of products ranging from different types of razors from basic 2-blade to most premium World’s first 6-Blade Razor. The razor range in India includes Pace 2, Pace 3, Pace 4, Pace 6 Plus, Pace XLPro, Soft Touch 4, and Soft Touch 6 in the systems category. The disposables range includes Pace 3 Disposable and Pace 6 Disposable including more.

The company, which has a revenue run rate of Rs 30 crore, targets to reach Rs 100 crore in two-three years helped by a burgeoning market where men are spending time and money to groom themselves and look more presentable.

The male grooming and shaving market is growing rapidly at 12% in India and is worth about Rs 5,000 crore, according to data from Nielsen. While products related to shaving & face care continue to account for over 50% of the male grooming pie, newer focus areas like body and hair care are fuelling growth.

The venture arm of Wipro Consumer Care has invested an undisclosed amount in LetsShave, a startup focused on the male and female shaving and grooming market. 

Wipro Consumer Care is an established industry player globally having deep insights into the consumer diaspora in India, and we would like to leverage their expertise to chart a strong growth trajectory,” said Sidharth Oberoi, founder of LetsShave.

5. Jugnoo

One of the first names to open the startup ecosystem to Chandigarh is Jugnoo. The on-demand auto rickshaw platform that has now expanded to over 30 cities and is looking to go global was started by Samar Singla and Chinmay Agarwal in 2014 as an experiment but soon built a hyperlocal space in B2B & B2C domains. 

In FY 2017-2018, Jugnoo’s revenue doubled to Rs 11.7 crore from Rs 5.14 crore in FY 2016-2017. While Jugnoo’s losses came down to Rs 16.34 crore in 2017-2018 from Rs 17.39 crore in 2016-2017. 

Team Jugnoo does not favor perks and considers them as a sign of weakness of their business model. In India where approximately 30 million auto rides are taken and Jugnoo is currently involved in 0.1 % of it, hence there is a huge potential to be exploited. The startup aims to extend its services to the remotest corners of the country. Also soon it aims to become a major international player.

6. WizIQ

WizIQ is an online teaching and e-learning platform that lets students collaborate with teachers and take lessons online. The reach of the platform makes it rank at the top of our list of Startups in Chandigarh. WizIQ has pre-built courses similar to Lynda but the specialty of the platform is its live classrooms where teachers can teach students on an online whiteboard with audio & video. 

WizIQ’s revenue is $5.7M annually. After extensive research and analysis, Zippia’s data science team found the following key financial metrics.WizIQ has 350 employees, and the revenue per employee ratio is $16,285.WizIQ’s peak revenue was $5.7M in 2021

7. Pumpkart

Pumpkart is an eCommerce company which sells water pumps online. This is one such startup in Chandigarh that has got reorganization by Google. In 2016, Google CEO Sundar Pichai mentioned Pumpkart as an example of a successful futuristic startup at a dinner with Narendra Modi during his India visit. Pumpkart has recently started to open O2O stores i.e. online to offline and has expanded many folds. 

Founded in 2014 by KS Bhatia, Chandigarh-based Pumpkart started off its journey as a business-to-consumer marketplace for water pumps but later ventured into the B2B model for appliances and electrical products. The company remained bootstrapped till 2017 when it raised a seed funding round from Dr. Ritesh Malik, who is the founder of Innov8 and Project Guerrilla. 

8. Chandigarh Metro

Chandigarh Metro is the first and the largest digital community in Chandigarh. The website serves the city residents with interesting news, events, and other important updates. As of July 2016, Chandigarh Metro gets over 1.5 Lakh users and 2 Lakh page views every month which makes it reach over 15% of the total city population. 

The number of employees ranges from 250 to 500. The annual revenue of Chandigarh Metro Media Pvt. Ltd. varies between 25M and 100M. With appreciation emails from IGP Punjab (Police Headquarters, Sector 9); CBI Office, Chandigarh; some Chandigarh-based NGOs; and a lot of thank you emails from fans, Chandigarh Metro has been touching the lives of people by keeping them updated about all that’s happening in the City Beautiful.