Tie Global Jaipur vs MGC Jodhpur
MGC wins hands down.
Jodhpur joins the race for startup hub.
One increasingly finds that it is the airport cities which are not state capitals that are winning the startup battle. So whether it is Kanpur or Dhanbad or Jodhpur or Dharwad – it is all happening where the IITs are located. Either someone did a very good job of choosing locations for IITs or the IITs have become the nucleus for the startup economy. Most probably the latter.
This month I got to see the TiE sponsored startup event in Jaipur and the Maheshwari Samaj sponsored event in Jodhpur.
There was just no competition. Jodhpur wins hands down. It is not by 10 or 20% but by 10 x or 100 x. Many congrats to Mrs Rajshree Birla, Mrs Deepa Rathi, Mrs RL Kabra and the four male board members of the Maheshwari Samaj for pulling off the largest startup event of FY 2025-26. With over 250,000 footfalls over three days it was an event like no other. TiE with 12,000 was puny and inconsequential.
Let’s look at the outcomes. The TIE exhibition had a motley crowd of stall holders who seemed force-fitted to fill the space. There were maybe 25 real startups and not one was of any consequence. As expected, not one deal closed. The investors were there because of other reasons and the startups had been lured with the promise of instant funding. The govt support was financial but not political. So the event was basically done on govt sponsorships but the govt presence was muted.
MGC on the other hand saw the physical arrival of Amit Shah, Nitin Gadkari, Ashwani Vaishnav, GS Sekhavat and almost every politician or bureaucrat who mattered in Rajasthan from the Chief Minister downward.
Tie had Ashwani Vaishnav come in by video and Smriti Irani hogged the stage to try to reinvent herself as the startup czarina. To be fair she did a really good job. But is she the role model for startups or for the intelligentsia. The interview on stage was done by the event manager and was more suited to the carpet exhibition than to a global startup summit.
Jaipur has lost the race to be startup hub. There are more CAs than engineers in startups. And more sme ipo stocks under investigation than any in India. One particular merchant banker in Jaipur has done over 150 sme IPOs. Not one seems to have any technology of global relevance.
Now come to Jodhpur. It has just about got started. The entire youth of the city – tens of thousands of them rocked to the drums of Ravi Drums (actually Ravi Jakhotia). I remember him as the drummer at Howdy Modi. He played with Britney Spears and was covered in the Oprah
Tie in contrast organised a palace tour on the last day. Fuddy duddy participants took a bus leaving the kids stranded at the convention centre to fend for themselves. MGC got Ravi Drum into the startup convention.
Jaipur is not going to be consequential to ai, cyber and digital. But Jodhpur may just be. Jaipur however will rule in tourism.
Not everyone can do everything
