Brands
Under 30, 35, 40: Hurun India Uth report spotlights young tycoon trailblazers
MUMBAI: India’s next generation of business leaders has decided that experience can be overrated and age is just another metric to beat. The Avendus Wealth – Hurun India Uth Series 2025, unveiled on Tuesday, brings together 436 entrepreneurs under 40 who are already shaping companies valued higher than the GDP of Switzerland.
Spanning the Under 30, Under 35 and Under 40 lists, the Uth Series captures a cross section of India’s modern enterprise, from first-time founders building category-defining start-ups to heirs reinventing legacy businesses. Together, companies led by these entrepreneurs command a cumulative valuation of more than $950 billion or about Rs 83 lakh crore, and employ over 1.2 million people.
The muscle behind the numbers is largely self-made. Nearly 80 per cent of those featured, 349 entrepreneurs, are first-generation founders, signalling a decisive shift away from inherited business power. Second-generation leaders account for 37 names, while third-generation entrepreneurs add another 36, suggesting that while legacy still matters, merit is now the louder voice.
The youngest entrants may lack grey hair, but not ambition. Across the series, the average age stands at 35, with women accounting for 36 of the 436 names. While the gender gap remains stark, the presence of women founders increases steadily across the older cohorts, hinting at momentum as ventures scale and mature.
Geography tells its own story. Bengaluru tightens its grip as India’s undisputed youth capital, contributing 109 entrepreneurs across the three lists. Mumbai follows with 87, while New Delhi adds 45. Gurugram chips in with 36, and even San Francisco makes an appearance with 18 India-linked founders, underlining the global footprint of the country’s entrepreneurial class.
Bengaluru’s dominance is no accident. The city benefits from decades of start-up maturity, dense venture capital networks and policy tailwinds, including Rs 1 lakh crore of infrastructure investments announced by Karnataka in 2025 alone. Mumbai, by contrast, draws strength from scale, finance and conglomerate muscle, while Delhi NCR’s showing reflects its deepening technology and services base.
Education remains a powerful launchpad. IIT Kharagpur tops the list of undergraduate institutions with 27 entrants, narrowly ahead of IIT Delhi with 26 and IIT Madras with 22. IIT Bombay and IIT Roorkee round out the top five, reinforcing the IIT system’s role as a conveyor belt for high-impact founders.
Sectorally, software still rules the roost. Software Products and Services accounts for 77 entrants, or 18 per cent of the list, mirroring India’s booming SaaS market that is projected to grow at over 27 per cent annually through the next decade. Financial Services follows with 44 names, buoyed by fintech’s steady funding flows, while Healthcare adds 37 entrepreneurs, many building AI-driven diagnostics and digital health platforms for underserved markets.
Consumer goods, logistics, education, e-commerce and real estate together bring breadth to the list, reflecting an ecosystem that is no longer obsessed with one idea of growth.
Money, unsurprisingly, follows momentum. At the top of the funding pile sits Prism, better known as Oyo, which has raised $3.7 billion under 31-year-old Ritesh Agarwal. Zepto’s 22-year-old founders Aadit Palicha and Kaivalya Vohra have already pulled in $1.95 billion, while Meesho, led by founders in their mid-thirties, has raised $1.36 billion.
Beyond the headline names, companies such as ShareChat, Cars24, Uniphore, Perplexity, OfBusiness and Zetwerk, each with funding between $850 million and $1.3 billion, show investor conviction stretching well beyond consumer apps into deep tech, infrastructure and enterprise software.
As founders age through the Uth ladder, their companies mature too. Sixty percent of U30 ventures are still in Series A or B, while half of U40-led companies are already late-stage and a third are listed. It is a neat illustration of how today’s hoodie-wearing founders become tomorrow’s boardroom fixtures.
Influence, meanwhile, is no longer confined to balance sheets. On LinkedIn, Zerodha’s Nikhil Kamath leads the popularity race with 1.39 million followers, followed closely by Ritesh Agarwal at 1.32 million. Ghazal Alagh of Mamaearth remains the most followed woman entrepreneur with 633,000 followers, proving that personal brand has become a serious business asset.
Scale shows up most starkly in employment. Reliance Retail, led by U35 entrant Isha Ambani, is the largest employer on the list with 247,782 staff, followed by Shahi Exports with 100,000. Reliance Jio Infocomm, the RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group and Apollo Hospitals complete the top five, underscoring how youth leadership now extends deep into India’s largest enterprises.
Recent developments among Uth Series companies suggest the pace is only quickening. Physics Wallah and Groww made strong stock market debuts, Razorpay completed a strategic reverse flip to anchor itself firmly in India, Ola Electric moved into home energy storage, and Leverage Edu doubled revenues past Rs 180 crore in FY25. Several others, including BharatPe and Capillary Technologies, reported first-time profitability, a sign of a maturing ecosystem learning fiscal discipline.
Seen alongside China and the UK, India’s cohort stands out for its sheer first-generation firepower. While the UK leads on that metric with 92 per cent self-made founders, India’s 80 per cent is driven by demographics, digital adoption and a rapidly expanding middle class.
The message from the Uth Series is clear. India’s future business leaders are not waiting for permission, nor are they content with incremental wins. They are building fast, scaling early and broadcasting their ambition loudly.
Brands
Malaika Arora launches accessories brand Maejoy
The Bollywood star’s lifestyle brand, built with Myntra and Exceed Entertainment, promises aspirational fashion without the high price tag
MUMBAI: Malaika Arora is not the first Bollywood star to put her name on a brand, and she will not be the last. But Maejoy, the accessories label she has launched in partnership with Myntra Jabong India Private Limited (MJIPL) and talent outfit Exceed Entertainment, at least has a sharper pitch than most. The brand drops with 250-plus styles spanning handbags and lab-grown diamond jewellery, two categories that sit squarely in the sweet spot between aspiration and affordability, and lands on Myntra’s platform from day one, putting it in front of millions of shoppers without breaking a sweat.
The handbag range covers the full gamut: crossbody bags, structured shoulder bags, bucket bags, totes, workwear classics, backpacks and clutches, rendered in synthetic leather, raffia, braids, satin, rhinestone and metallic finishes. The jewellery line runs to rings, earrings, pendants, bracelets and tennis bracelets in silver, gold and rose-gold tones, set in 925 sterling silver with IGI and GCI certified lab-grown diamonds. The brand’s guiding philosophy, “The Joy of Being Me,” stakes its claim on individuality and self-expression; its three brand pillars, Authentic, Empowering, Accessible, are the usual suspects, though the lab-grown diamond bet is savvier than it sounds. Lab-grown stones now sell at a fraction of the price of mined ones, and the category is growing fast in India as younger buyers wise up to the arbitrage.
“Maejoy is a labour of love. Throughout my career, whether on screen, in business, or through my personal style, I’ve championed the idea that fashion should be empowering yet effortless. The brand aims to democratise global fashion trends while offering women something that extends the feeling of luxury every day, be it a lab-grown diamond or a perfectly crafted handbag,” said Malaika Arora, founder of Maejoy
MJIPL, the B2B wholesale arm of Myntra, is putting its design and brand-building muscle behind the venture. Suman Saha, chief experience officer and head of house of brands at MJIPL, was bullish on the tie-up.
“Maejoy brings together Malaika Arora’s distinctive style perspective with a strong proposition in the accessible yet elevated accessories space. We believe the brand’s fashion-forward designs and thoughtful positioning will connect strongly with discerning consumers.”
Suman Saha, chief experience officer, head of house of brands, MJIPL
Afsar Zaidi, chief executive of Exceed Entertainment, the talent management firm that helped broker the deal, has worked with MJIPL before and was characteristically direct about what makes Arora an unusually bankable partner.
“Building celebrity-led brands requires a delicate balance of authenticity and market viability. Malaika is a rare talent who commands equal respect as a fashion icon and a savvy businesswoman. We are proud to facilitate this partnership that brings together her creative clout and Myntra’s brand-building excellence,” said Zaidi
Celebrity fashion brands live or die on one question: does the star actually wear it, or is the cheque the only thing they signed? Arora, who has spent three decades as one of Bollywood’s most-watched style references, has at least built a plausible case. Maejoy is live now on www.myntra.com and the Myntra app. The real test, whether shoppers buy the handbag or just the hype, starts today.
