Every few decades, a single institution produces a cohort that changes the shape of an industry - sometimes several industries, on several continents, simultaneously. In the first quarter of the 21st century, that institution was the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. IIT Delhi alumni have founded over 2,400 companies globally. They have raised $92.7 billion in funding. Among India's first hundred unicorns, 30 founders came from this single campus in South Delhi - more than from any other institution in the country. And those are just the ones the data caught. The real story is harder to quantify. It is the story of five people who left Hauz Khas with an engineering degree, no capital, no guarantees, and no permission from anyone - and then went and built the internet economy of a billion-person nation, a $3.7 billion Silicon Valley exit, a challenger bank in Britain, and the most-used food app in the world. 

Sachin Bansal