For these foreigners, India is where all the action is

When Sean Blagsvedt came to India in 2004 to head Program Management and Advanced Prototyping for Microsoft Research, he had no thoughts of settling down here. But within months, Oakland-born Blagsvedt quit his high-paying job at Microsoft, married a Tamil Iyengar and set up a company solving the problems of unskilled and blue-collar jobs in India.

Ten years on, Blagsvedt has no regrets. He considers the move to become an entrepreneur in India one of his best decisions. “India is largely an under-served market, but has huge potential when it comes to adoption of technology. We are trying to solve some socio-economic problems with the help of digital technology,” he says. His venture, Babajob, connects job seekers such as security guards, drivers, maids and cooks with potential employers.

Similarly, Greg Moran and David Back left theUS in 2013 to work in India but ended up starting their own company Zoomcar, a self-driving car rental start-up.  What started with just seven vehiclesnow has over 250 cars at 40 locations across Bengaluru, where it’s based, and Pune.

There are plans to expand to 10 more cities this year with the funding it received from Sequoia recently. “I like the energy levels of the people here. Besides, starting business in India is becoming an easy process,” says Moran.

Blagsvedt, Moran and Back are examples of the increasing number of foreigners coming to India to turn entrepreneurs. Perhaps the most famous example is that of Valerie Wagoner, founder of ZipDial. She came to Bengaluru to work with mCheck but soon realised the potential of missed calls in the bandwidth deprived Indian mobile market. She came up with a solution for marketers to tap millions of mobile users without access to internet. Her company was recently bought by micro-blogging site Twitter.

According to Blagsvedt, there are about 50-odd such entrepreneurs in Bengaluru and the number is growing fast as the start-up ecosystem in India matures and offers the opportunity for rapid growth. In fact, the numbers are so significant that it has led to the formation of an Expat Entrepreneurs Circle, an exclusive organisation of foreign entrepreneurs and non-resident Indians doing business in India.

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