'Leave Mumbai, Delhi, go to Bengaluru': Unacademy's Gaurav Munjal says city best bet for entrepreneurs

Gaurav Munjal, the CEO of Unacademy, egged entrepreneurs from Delhi and Mumbai to move to Bengaluru where the odds of success are higher. 

"Mumbai may be a better city than Bengaluru, it is a good place to spend a weekend but to run a startup you have to be in Bengaluru," Munjal  said at TechSparks 2024 in Mumbai, adding that no matter how hard one tries, they cannot beat the "network effect" the city provides. 

"I have not gone to a coffee shop and met someone who is not trying to make in big in business here," he said. "You cannot expect something like that in a city like Mumbai."

“Bengaluru is slower paced than Mumbai but the odds of your success increases a lot," Munjal who spent most of his academic year in Mumbai and is now based in Bengaluru.

“The energy is very different. You can't beat these network effects in other cities, it's not going to happen,” he said, adding in a lighter vein that the aim of events such as TechSparks should be to convert people in "Mumbai and Delhi to go to Bengaluru”.

“If you are starting up, your goal should be how do I increase the probability of success in every move I do, and the eco-system in Bengaluru is next-level.”

Long touted as India's Silicon Valley, Bengaluru as per a November report emerged as the biggest hub for most valued companies started by self-made entrepreneurs in this millennium. A majority 129 such industry leaders are from the Karnataka capital, which is ahead of Mumbai (78), and Gurugram and New Delhi (49), as per a report by Hurun India.