Spotlight
oi-Oneindia Staff
India’s startup ecosystem has grown rapidly, but access to funding, mentorship and visibility is still concentrated largely in the metros. Startup Singam, South India’s first startup reality show, is trying to change that by bringing entrepreneurs from smaller cities and towns into the spotlight. Two seasons in, the show is also beginning to show results beyond television.
Startup Singam, South India’s first reality show, supports entrepreneurs from Tamil Nadu towns by providing funding, mentorship, and visibility, operating as a high-volume investment platform that drives capital and increases early-stage investing.
Born From a Grassroots Idea
Startup Singam was not originally planned as a television format. Its founder, Hemachandran L, a media strategist and ecosystem builder, has spoken about being inspired by specialised communities and technology events such as GITEX in Dubai, where people from different backgrounds come together around ideas and innovation.
He wanted to create something similar for entrepreneurs in Tamil Nadu, but with a clear focus on the regional ecosystem. The idea was to create a platform that worked in the local language and was accessible to entrepreneurs from smaller towns and villages, not just those from metro cities.
What started as a one-time event eventually became a company. Co-founder Bala believed that while an event could create a moment, a company could create long-term value. This eventually brought Kumar Vembu, co-founder of Zoho Corp and founder of Mudhal Partners, into the venture as an investor and mentor.
Vembu has said that his early conversations with the founding team were less about returns and more about the larger purpose of the platform. One of the questions he raised was whether they were looking at “return on investment or return on impact.” The team’s focus on both convinced him to come on board.
Vembu’s interest in small businesses also comes from his own experience of building products for business owners across India for nearly two decades. He saw many businesses that were profitable and self-sustaining, but whose founders were not always familiar with basic business concepts such as gross margin, return on investment and growth planning.
His larger idea was to make these concepts more familiar to entrepreneurs in Tamil Nadu, just as they have become familiar to audiences watching global startup shows such as Shark Tank.
More Than a Shark Tank Format
The comparison with Shark Tank is natural, and the Startup Singam team acknowledges that the show influenced some of their thinking. But the format has been designed differently.
The focus is not on creating drama for television or manufacturing conflict between investors and founders. The investors are active investors, and the entrepreneurs are not simply judged as successful or unsuccessful based on what happens on the show.
Even the name reflects this thinking. “Singam”, or lion, refers to the entrepreneur rather than the investor. The idea is to look at a business based on how well the idea has been executed, rather than giving the founder a permanent label of success or failure.
The team sees the value it offers entrepreneurs in three broad areas – funding, mentorship and marketing visibility. Not every entrepreneur may receive all three, but the aim is for every participant to gain something useful from the platform.
The Numbers Behind the Format
Beyond the television format, Startup Singam is also operating like a high-volume investment platform with a relatively lean team.
CEO Arun Nair has pointed out that a typical VC firm or angel network may close five or six investments a year, while Startup Singam works through roughly 50 in the same period. Much of its young team has been built through first-time hires from tier-2 and tier-3 cities rather than experienced finance professionals.
The team has also made changes to its internal process between Season 1 and Season 2. It says the time between a funding commitment and the money reaching a founder’s account has reduced by around 30-40%. A major reason has been getting entrepreneurs to keep their compliance and documentation ready before due diligence rather than starting the process after a deal is announced.
Kumar Vembu has also noted that around 80% of the HNI investor panel in the latest season were first-time startup investors. This suggests that the platform is not only helping founders find capital but is also bringing more people into early-stage investing.
Stories From Outside the Usual Startup Circle
Some of the businesses featured on the show also reflect the kind of entrepreneurs the platform wants to bring forward.
Sprint6, an IoT-based smart restroom monitoring system founded by a diploma holder from Tenkasi, is one example. Vet Instant, a non-intrusive vital-monitoring device for animals, was founded by a chartered accountant, an HR professional and a mechanical engineer who did not have a previous background in medical devices.
Another venture, ASC, which works on cattle disease detection and was founded by a veterinary researcher, is now reportedly raising funds at around four times the valuation at which it first appeared on the show.
The team also points to the participation of women co-founders among the funded startups, saying the proportion is higher than what is usually seen in mainstream startup coverage.
A Measured Approach to Expansion
Despite the traction, the team is taking a measured approach to expansion.
Rather than immediately taking the format to multiple states, the founders are following what they describe as a “vertical before horizontal” approach, building deeper within Tamil Nadu before expanding into other markets.
Tamil Nadu already has more than 10,000 DPIIT-registered startups and is among the leading states in the country in terms of startup registrations, making it a large ecosystem to build within.
The team is looking at Telangana, Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh as possible next markets, with early conversations already underway. But the focus remains on building the ecosystem first rather than simply expanding the format quickly.
More Than the Funding Numbers
Season 2 brought together more than 100 HNIs and 25-plus investors around 75 startups across 26 episodes, according to the team.
But the founders often point to something beyond the funding numbers – trust and visibility.
For some entrepreneurs, appearing on the show has also helped their families and communities better understand what they are building. That matters for a platform that is trying to make entrepreneurship a more visible and credible career option for people in smaller towns.
For Startup Singam, that may be as important as the funding itself. The larger ambition is to create a platform where entrepreneurs from outside the usual startup centres can find capital, mentorship, visibility and a network to build from.
