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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.
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Funskool India crosses US$40 million turnover in FY 2025-26
Toy manufacturer posts steady growth despite global headwinds.
MUMBAI: Funskool India has played its cards well turning challenges into steady growth while keeping the fun alive in the toy business. The country’s leading toy manufacturer has reported a turnover of $40 million in FY 2025-26, demonstrating resilience in a difficult global environment. The company recorded an average growth of 14 per cent over the past two years, with exports growing at a healthy 19% year-on-year.
While domestic business grew at a modest single-digit pace, Funskool saw encouraging traction in key categories such as Fundough (dough) and Handycrafts (arts & crafts).
Funskool India Ltd. CEO K.A. Shabir said, “We successfully navigated the challenges posed by US tariffs last year and continued to grow both our export and domestic businesses. Given the ongoing geopolitical situation in West Asia, we are currently working with a moderate growth outlook of 12–15 per cent, with plans to revisit our targets after Q1 once the situation stabilises.”
He highlighted strengthened partnerships with global companies including Spin Master (Canada), Moose Toys (Australia), Melissa & Doug (USA), Asmodee (France), Learning Resources (USA), and Buffalo Games (USA). The expansion of the company’s Goa plant is progressing and is expected to be completed by the end of the current financial year.
Looking ahead, Funskool expects a significant shift in domestic growth momentum for FY 2026-27, driven by new categories such as friction vehicles under the brand “BlazeTrix”, remote-control cars under “VoltRush”, and the addition of popular licences like Paw Patrol.
In an industry where playtime never stops, Funskool has shown that even in turbulent times, a smart strategy and strong partnerships can keep the business ticking along nicely. As it gears up for the next financial year, the company appears well-positioned to build on its solid foundation and bring even more joy to children worldwide.
