International Friendship Day celebrates unique bonds, but friendships can lead to amazing business success stories. Friends who joined hands to pursue business dreams founded many successful startups in India, a nation known for its entrepreneurial spirit.
Finding the perfect co-founder for a startup can be difficult, yet some of the most creative and successful businesses have come from talks between best friends. This article tells the inspirational tales of startups that began as friendships and developed into successful startups. In India, many successful startups are founded by best friends doing extraordinary work in their respective fields.
Startups Founded by Best Friends
OLA
Founded in 2010 by Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati, Ola is an Indian transportation startup providing ridesharing services and operating other business verticals such as financial and cloud kitchens.
It is headquartered in Bangalore, Karnataka, and operates in 250+ Indian cities.
Razorpay
The journey of building Razorpay started in 2014, when Harshil Mathur and Shashank Kumar witnessed the dismal state of the online payments industry in India and understood that they had a larger and more important issue to solve.
Razorpay aims to revolutionize money management for online businesses by providing clean, developer-friendly APIs and hassle-free integration.
Zomato
Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah’s friendship founded Zomato in 2008, a major food delivery and restaurant discovery network. After meeting at a consulting firm, their partnership became a game-changing enterprise.
They founded Zomato, which has transformed food discovery and consumption globally, by combining their passion for food and technology.
Urbanclap
Founded in 2014 by Abhiraj Bhal, Varun Khaitan, and Raghav Chandra, Urban startup (formerly UrbanClap) is India’s and the UAE’s largest home services startup. Urban startup is a home technology platform that provides a variety of services.
Customers use their platform to book services such as beauty treatments, haircuts, massage therapy, cleaning, plumbing, carpentry, appliance repair, painting, etc.
Policybazaar
Ever been confused by insurance complexities? This uncertainty was experienced by Yashish Dahiya and Alok Bansal, friends at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad. They founded Policybazaar in 2008 to make insurance more accessible by letting customers compare and buy policies online.
Their friendship and understanding of the industry’s issues led to a service that streamlines insurance for millions.
Dunzo
In July 2014, Kabeer Biswas, an alumnus of the NMIMS, University of Mumbai, founded Dunzo. Dunzo is an Indian startup that delivers fruits and vegetables, meat, pet supplies, food, and medicines in major cities.
It also has a separate service to pick up and deliver packages within the same city.
Swiggy
At the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, Sriharsha Majety and Nandan Reddy met and founded Swiggy in 2014, a popular food delivery app.
Swiggy, now a billion-dollar company, was founded on their friendship and shared enthusiasm for efficient food delivery. They built one of the nation’s most popular meal delivery services together.
Curefit
Bansal and Ankit Nagori founded Curefit in 2016. Cure.fit is a healthcare startup that utilizes technology and data to empower individuals to maintain a healthy lifestyle and obtain inexpensive healthcare services.
The startup provides a comprehensive range of exercise, nutrition, and mental wellbeing services through its fully integrated four verticals, available both online and offline.
Bewakoof
Prabkiran Singh and Siddharth Munot, IIT-Bombay civil engineering grads, printed T-shirts for college fests and got good orders. They didn’t want to continue. After college, both partners built Bewakoof in April 2012.
The clothing and smartphone cover startup uses unique, hilarious, messaging to engage with customers.
Lenskart
Having trouble locating the ideal pair of glasses? Friends since their MBA days, Peyush Bansal and Amit Chaudhary, encountered the same difficulty. They established Lenskart in 2010, an online store that has grown to be a popular spot to buy contact lenses and eyeglasses, in order to solve this problem.
Their friendship and common goal developed into a successful company that helped millions of people discover the ideal eyewear.
Despite being distinctive in their own right, these businesses have one thing in common: they were all established on the mutual respect, trust, and vision of best friends. These businesses are serving as a striking reminder of the potential found in friendships as they expand.
What are the benefits of starting a business with a friend?
Trust, Communication, Shared Vision, Values, and Support System are the benefits of starting a business with a friend.
Which startups are founded by best friends in India?
In India, best friends founded startups such as OLA, Razorpay, Zomato, Urbanclap, Policybazaar, Donzo, Swiggy, Curefit, Bewakoof, and Lenskart.
