By SkillCircle Editorial
6 Oct 2026
11 min read

Delhi and the NCR have produced some of India’s most influential founders — people who built job portals, food delivery giants, payment apps, eyewear chains, beauty brands and skilling companies, often starting with very little. Below are ten entrepreneurs whose journeys are worth studying if you are a student or career switcher drawn to startups and digital skills.

A quick note before we begin: this is an editorial inspiration list, not a ranking by net worth, valuation or company size. The numbering is simply the order we chose to tell these stories. Each founder is here because their path offers a clear, practical lesson for anyone building a career in India’s digital economy.

Why Delhi NCR matters for startups

Delhi, Gurugram and Noida form one of India’s densest startup regions. The region combines a huge consumer market, strong engineering and management colleges, a deep pool of sales and operations talent, and a growing network of angel investors and incubators. Consumer internet, fintech, D2C brands, mobility, hospitality tech and edtech have all grown strong roots here.

At a glance (2026 list)

Use this comparison table to scan companies, focus areas and bases before reading each story.

1. Sanjeev Bikhchandani — Info Edge

The patient pioneer of Indian internet businesses

Sanjeev Bikhchandani founded Info Edge in the 1990s and launched Naukri.com in 1997, long before most Indians had home internet. An IIM Ahmedabad graduate, he left a stable corporate job to bet on online classifieds. The Noida-headquartered company later added 99acres for real estate and Jeevansathi for matrimony.

He is also known as one of the earliest backers of Zomato, an investment that showed how a founder who understands the internet can spot the next wave early.

Why study this journey

• Jobs, real estate and matrimony platforms under Info Edge
• Early conviction in Indian consumer internet
• Angel investor who backed Zomato early

Best for

• Students studying long-term compounding businesses
• Anyone building classifieds, marketplaces or hiring products

Lesson for learners

• You do not need to be first to the trend in a flashy way. You need to solve a real, recurring problem and stay with it longer than others do.

2. Deepinder Goyal — Zomato / Eternal

From scanned menus to quick commerce

Deepinder Goyal, an IIT Delhi alumnus, started Foodiebay in 2008 with co-founder Pankaj Chaddah by scanning restaurant menus and putting them online for office-goers in Delhi NCR. The idea was simple and useful. Foodiebay became Zomato, which grew from restaurant discovery into food delivery.

Zomato went public in 2021, acquired the quick-commerce business Blinkit, and its parent company was later renamed Eternal.

Why study this journey

• Started with a scrappy menu-scanning MVP
• Scaled discovery → delivery → quick commerce
• Public markets and acquisitions as growth milestones

Best for

• Builders who want to start small and learn demand early
• Operators interested in consumer internet scale

Lesson for learners

• Start with a scrappy version of the solution. A menu scanner was enough to test demand; scale came later.

3. Vijay Shekhar Sharma — Paytm

The small-town engineer who helped India go cashless

Vijay Shekhar Sharma grew up in Aligarh and studied engineering at the Delhi College of Engineering. He founded One97 Communications in 2000 and launched Paytm, initially for mobile recharges, from its Noida base.

Paytm’s QR codes and wallet became familiar across shops and street stalls, especially as digital payments surged in India from 2016 onwards. The company has since faced regulatory challenges, but its role in normalising digital payments for millions is widely acknowledged.

Why study this journey

• Mobile recharge → wallet → UPI-era payments habit
• Mass-market distribution across small merchants
• Noida as a fintech base

Best for

• Founders from non-metro backgrounds
• Anyone studying payments and financial inclusion

Lesson for learners

• Background is not destiny. Curiosity, persistence and a willingness to learn in public can take you far.

4. Ritesh Agarwal — OYO

A teenage founder who rethought budget stays

Ritesh Agarwal, originally from Odisha, started Oravel Stays as a teenager and pivoted it into OYO in 2013 after noticing how inconsistent budget hotels were. He was among the early Indian recipients of the Thiel Fellowship.

OYO, headquartered in Gurugram, grew rapidly across India and into international markets. Its journey has included periods of aggressive expansion and later restructuring, which makes it a valuable case study in both growth and course correction.

Why study this journey

• Teen founder → Thiel Fellowship → national brand
• Budget hospitality standardisation
• Expansion, then restructuring as a lesson

Best for

• Young founders and career switchers
• Operators studying hospitality tech

Lesson for learners

• Your own frustrations as a customer can point to a business. Pay attention to them.

5. Peyush Bansal — Lenskart

Making eyewear affordable and accessible

Delhi-born Peyush Bansal worked at Microsoft in the US before returning to India to build ventures of his own. In 2010 he co-founded Lenskart, which started online and expanded into a large network of physical stores, combining technology, in-house manufacturing and home eye tests.

Lenskart, based in Gurugram, is one of the clearest examples of an Indian omnichannel brand. Peyush also became a familiar face to a wider audience as an investor on Shark Tank India.

Why study this journey

• Online-first eyewear with strong offline stores
• Manufacturing + tech + home eye tests
• Omnichannel retail as a growth engine

Best for

• D2C builders blending online and offline
• Students watching Shark Tank-style entrepreneurship

Lesson for learners

• Online and offline are not opposites. Some of the strongest brands blend both.

6. Kunal Bahl — Snapdeal

An e-commerce builder turned startup backer

Kunal Bahl, a Delhi native and Wharton alumnus, co-founded Snapdeal with his school friend Rohit Bansal. They began with a coupon business and pivoted into an online marketplace in 2010, becoming one of the early players in Indian e-commerce.

Snapdeal went through intense competition and a major reset, which Kunal has spoken about openly. Alongside Rohit, he also co-founded Titan Capital, which has backed many early-stage Indian startups.

Why study this journey

• Coupon business pivoted into marketplace
• Survived intense e-commerce competition
• Investor via Titan Capital

Best for

• Founders navigating pivots
• Operators who may later invest or mentor

Lesson for learners

• A pivot is not a failure. It is often how founders find the business that actually works.

7. Shivam Ahuja — SkillCircle

Building job-ready digital skills, one classroom at a time

Shivam Ahuja is the Founder and CEO of SkillCircle, which he started in 2016 under HNI Idea Ventures. His career began in sales at Micromax, where he learned how customers think and how businesses grow on the ground. He then moved to Expert Vidya, gaining experience in education, before founding SkillCircle.

Based in Delhi NCR, SkillCircle has grown from a single centre to more than 15 centres across roughly 10 Indian states, with a team of around 200 people. Its focus is practical, career-oriented learning in digital marketing, data science and freelancing, skills that help students and working professionals find roles or build independent income.

Beyond his own company, Shivam founded the DelhiStartups community and Delhi Angels, helping connect founders with peers and early-stage investors. He is a TEDx speaker and a mentor at Atal Incubation Centre BIMTECH. You can follow his work on LinkedIn or learn more at skillcircle.in.

Why study this journey

• Sales → education → edtech founder path
• 15+ centres across ~10 states; ~200-person team
• DelhiStartups community and Delhi Angels; TEDx speaker; mentor at Atal Incubation Centre BIMTECH

Best for

• Learners building digital careers
• Founders who care about skilling and community

Lesson for learners

• Sales experience and an understanding of learners can become the foundation of a company. Skills compound, both for you and for the people you teach.

8. Ghazal Alagh — Mamaearth

A parent’s problem that became a D2C brand

Ghazal Alagh co-founded Mamaearth in 2016 with her husband Varun Alagh after struggling to find toxin-free baby care products in India.

Mamaearth grew into Honasa Consumer, a Gurugram-based company with multiple personal care brands, and went public in 2023. Ghazal also joined the first season of Shark Tank India as an investor.

Why study this journey

• Problem-led D2C brand for toxin-free care
• Scaled into a listed consumer company
• Digital-first brand building

Best for

• D2C and brand marketers
• Parent-founders solving personal pain points

Lesson for learners

• Direct-to-consumer brands win on trust. Clear positioning and digital marketing can help a new brand compete with established names.

9. Vineeta Singh — SUGAR Cosmetics

Bold beauty, built with grit

Vineeta Singh grew up in Delhi and studied at IIT Madras and IIM Ahmedabad. She has spoken about turning down a high-paying job to become an entrepreneur and about an earlier venture that did not work out before she found her footing.

In 2015 she co-founded SUGAR Cosmetics with Kaushik Mukherjee, building a makeup brand designed for Indian skin tones that started online and expanded into retail. She is also widely recognised as an investor on Shark Tank India.

Why study this journey

• IIT + IIM background with early venture setbacks
• Beauty brand for Indian skin tones
• Online → retail expansion

Best for

• Founders recovering from early failures
• Beauty and D2C operators

Lesson for learners

• Early setbacks are data. Vineeta’s path shows that resilience matters as much as the first idea.

10. Ashneer Grover — BharatPe

Scaling merchant payments in the UPI era

Ashneer Grover, an IIT Delhi and IIM Ahmedabad alumnus, worked in finance and at companies such as Grofers before co-founding Delhi-based BharatPe in 2018. The company offered small merchants a single QR code that could accept payments from any UPI app, along with merchant-focused financial services.

BharatPe grew quickly in India’s fintech boom. Ashneer parted ways with the company in 2022 and has since been involved in new ventures. Regardless of one’s view of the public debates around his exit, BharatPe’s early growth is a notable chapter in Delhi’s fintech story.

Why study this journey

• Single QR for multi-UPI merchant payments
• Rapid fintech growth in the UPI era
• Merchant financial services adjacent to payments

Best for

• Fintech students and operators
• Anyone studying SME payment products

Lesson for learners

• Simplifying a painful process for small businesses can unlock very large markets.

Lessons for students and career switchers

Look closely at these ten journeys and a few patterns stand out:

• Start small and practical. Scanned menus, coupon deals and a single training centre were all modest beginnings.
• Customer understanding beats credentials. Many of these founders built on frontline experience in sales, operations or as frustrated customers.
• Digital skills are the common thread. Online marketing, data-driven decisions and product thinking show up in nearly every story.
• Community accelerates growth. Mentors, early investors and founder networks made a real difference.
• Pivots and setbacks are normal. Almost every founder here changed course at least once.

You do not have to launch a startup tomorrow to benefit from these lessons. Building strong skills in digital marketing, data analysis or freelancing can open doors to startup jobs, side projects and, eventually, your own venture.