Huge Opportunity For Indian Security Startups To Go Global

As India embarks on its digital India initiatives, cyber attacks have also doubled year on year, and Indian businesses and government sites have become more vulnerable than ever before. In such a scenario, information security is going to determine the success of our country and companies, Anurag Batra, Chairman & Editor-in-Chief of BW Businessworld said while moderating a security panel at the Nasscom Product Conclave held in Bengaluru.

There is a huge opportunity for Indian security startups to go global, Ashish Tandon, founder & CEO of Indusface said. “The notion that the India market is not big enough and that one needs to acquire US customers first, before making any exit is changing.”

For Indusface, a home-grown application security company which now has over 800 global customers across 17 countries, startups is the fastest growing segment. “They are agile and are the quickest to adapt to change,” Tandon said.

However, Indian security companies face “perception issues” which inhibit them from competing at a global level, said Prakash Bhaskaran, CTO, Security Solutions, Cisco. “Unless you have some real differentiation, it’s hard to get recognised globally.”
Last year, Bhaskaran sold Pawaa, the company he founded, to Cisco and has always believed in differentiating with intellectual property. “We have filed five patents for Pawa,” he said.

The panel was unanimous that with the advent of technologies like Internet of Things (IoT), the security market in India is only going to grow and there will be a huge demand for artificial-intelligence led security in the near future.