Delhi-NCR houses the highest number of online retail start-ups at 1,288.

Bengaluru may be called India’s technology hub, but Delhi-NCR (National Capital Region) is currently home to the highest number of start-ups at 8,772, reveal data released by Tracxn Technologies.

Hot on its heels is Bengaluru, with 6,818 start-ups, followed by Mumbai with 4,825. Hyderabad has 2,193 start-ups and 1,843 start-ups operate from Pune.

Further, the number of fintech start-ups running operations from Delhi-NCR stands at 449. Mumbai has 467 fintech start-ups, followed by Bengaluru at 405, Hyderabad at 128 and finally Pune at 103.

Delhi-NCR also houses the highest number of online retail start-ups at 1,288. Companies including Snapdeal, Limeroad, Paytm Mall and Shopclues are based in the region. As for Mumbai, it is has 645 online retail start-ups running their operations, followed by Bengaluru at 541. Hyderabad is home to 127 online retail start-ups.

Analysts say more and more next-generation entrepreneurs are breaking away from traditional businesses to start their own entities in cities like Delhi-NCR. “Majority of the start-ups in Bengaluru have been technology-oriented ideas, most of these were technology professionals. Many more professionals as well as children of business families are beginning the start-up journey in the NCR region. This shows that start-ups that are set up today are not limited to technology ideas but are spreading fast to financial services, consumer services as well as companies in the ecosystem play,” said Sreedhar Prasad, lead, e-commerce and start-ups, at KPMG.

As a majority of start-ups operate in Delhi-NCR, this has also ensured that the region receives most of the funds invested by venture capitalist firms.

According to a recent report by equity research firm Jefferies, close to $4 billion has been invested in the six months to June, compared with $1.6 billion in the corresponding period of 2016.

However, while earlier in the year the investments were spread across several players, Paytm and Oyo hogged about 70% of the total funding in the April-June quarter of 2017. Investors appear to be especially keen to support fintech players — the sector soaked up a chunk of the funds that flowed in.

Almost a third of the money that moved in went into fin-tech while another third found its way into e-tailing. In 2016, fintech attracted less than 10% of the funds.

This also reflects the fact that compared to the rest of the cities, Delhi-based fintech start-ups pocketed the majority of the funds. For instance, payments wallet Paytm picked up over $1 billion from SoftBank in May at a valuation of nearly $7 billion. Following the fundraising, SoftBank joined Alibaba Group as a major shareholder and secured a seat on the Paytm board.

Other players in the fintech space that found supporters include Freecharge, CreditMantri, CCavenues, Mswipe, Coverfox, True Balance, MoneyTap, Perfios and Paysense; the companies operate in segments such as lending, insurance and finance management solutions.

While the industry had started seeing some consolidation in early 2016, the subsequent shortage of cash that followed demonetisation and the anxieties ahead of the roll-out of the goods and services tax have both hurt business badly.