Chennai is quickly establishing itself as India’s SaaS centre, and the extraordinary speed with which the Chennai start-up system has evolved, particularly in the Saas sector, is commendable, says a White Paper on ‘Chennai: A hub for SaaS Start-ups’, published by Ernst & Young (EY), unveiled on Friday at the Chennai Micro Experience of FinTech Festival India 2021-22.

The white paper deep-dives into the evolving start-up ecosystem in Chennai and takes a detailed overview on how the city is fast emerging as a hub for SaaS based start-ups.

There are 55 universities in the State, as well as 2,267 colleges, 527 engineering colleges, and 447 polytechnics. Every year, roughly 4,00,000 engineers and technicians are recruited to the pool. Chennai’s diverse and rich talent pool is a big draw for these businesses and gives SaaS companies plenty of room to build their business within the city, says the white paper.

Connecting entrepreneurs

There are efforts underway to connect entrepreneurs on a community level by the State, and support structures, such as a network of angel and venture capital investors, are expected to aid the SaaS growth in Chennai, the white paper said.

On the way forward, the white paper said that the State government has begun building a fintech city in Chennai, with Tidco publishing a tender to appoint a Project Management Consultant for the ₹165 crore project.

While a fintech policy is being developed, the State government hopes to use the project to create a fintech ecosystem in order to attract both local and international financial institutions and to transform Chennai into one of the world’s main financial services hubs, more specifically a Global SaaS hub. It will be built with the necessary infrastructure to house financial institutions such as banks, non-banking financial services, financial BPO, regulatory agencies, financial market operations, and training centres, the white paper said.

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