Navigating India’s Startup Innovation Landscape
Discussion on the book
LeanSpark: Frugal by Design, Global in Impact
Zoom | 24 February 2026 | 2:00 pm (IST)

“The world needs this kind of frugal, flexible, and inclusive innovation. I believe that India can engage and gain by doing this in partnership with counterparts in developed countries..”

‘LeanSpark’ innovation emerges from constraints, but goes beyond improvisation and make-shift fixes to intentional, scalable and impactful innovation in the technology space. India stands at an inflection point, moving from jugaad to high tech frugal ingenuity. In the context of increasing numbers of deeptech startups in India, the LeanSpark paradigm provides a credible pathway for young innovators to build in India for the global market.

As part of stakeholder consultations for their work on the evolving startups ecosystem and innovation dynamics in India, the ICRIER Prosus Centre for Internet and Digital Economy (IPCIDE) hosted a virtual seminar, “Navigating India’s Startup Innovation Landscape” on 24 February 2026. In what was an exciting session on innovation pathways for Indian entrepreneurship, Jaideep Prabhu, Priyank Narayan and Mukesh Sud presented their recently launched book, ‘LeanSpark: Frugal by Design, Global in Impact’. The discussion that followed was led by Arvind Gupta and the session was moderated by Payal Malik. The book examines the ‘Frugal Innovation Canvas’, a stepby- step process for frugal, agile and scalable innovation by startups in the high technology domain.

A number of key takeaways on the Indian startup ecosystem in the journey towards Viksit Bharat 2047 were highlighted in the session,
-The transition from jugaad to the LeanSpark moment reflects the systemic change in India’s innovation journey over the years from BPO and low-end IT and ITeS services to scaling up the value chain to AI and technologies in industrial revolution 5.0. The depth of the startup ecosystem has also increased with the first-generation entrepreneurs now investing and mentoring new startups.

-The frugal economy is driven by three movements: the sharing economy that enables sharing of assets on digital platforms, the maker movement based largely in academic settings that spurs purposeful and impactful innovation and the circular economy that deviates from the traditional linear models of production and consumption.

-The government is an important participant as well as driver of frugal innovation in India. A good example is that of ISRO and the private ecosystem evolving around it, including startups in the space economy. Similarly, India’s successful implementation of frugal, open, inclusive and interoperable digital public infrastructure- the India stackfrom Aadhar to UPI to ONDC- has achieved global recognition. The focus of DPI has not been to use it as a tool for hegemony but as one for empowerment.

– The government is now focussed on infusing capital into strategic R&D based sectors through initiatives like the RDI fund, apart from the earlier Fund of Funds and mission mode initiatives like the IndiaAI mission and Semiconductor mission. Recent times have also seen increasing private sector commitment and participation in investment.

-India’s AI revolution also underlines the LeanSpark principles, driven by the likes of Sarvam AI who advocate for ‘AI for all, and not AI for a few’ and the recent AI Impact Summit that also focuses on frugal and inclusive AI. Frugal AI can help steer India AI’s revolution to scale.

– India is a good testing ground for innovation as it has high talent density, diffusion at scale and is good at creating applications. The next step would be to work on frontier technologies to create an innovation arbitrage and deliver to the world.

– The presence of competitive federalism also supports startup growth in the country. Policy makers, regulators, the tech ecosystem, startups, large companies, global companies are working very well together in India.

-A key challenge and constraint to scale for startups in India has been that policy has always followed innovation. This regulatory lag is challenging in rapidly changing sectors as the technology would’ve changed by the time policy is enacted.

– There is a lot of maturity in the startup ecosystem in India today though it is different from that of the US and China with access to global capital and talent. Venture capital is however a resource-heavy model and may not be replicable in most other parts of the world. Through LeanSpark innovation, India can serve global settings, providing inclusive growth through affordable yet innovative solutions developed frugally and sustainably, given that resource constraints and need for scalability is present in all contexts.

To become LeanSpark innovators, startups need to,
– consider the key attributes of the LeanSpark Approach
1) Lean Execution (faster learning, lower waste);
2) Purposeful Simplicity (lower cost, easier adoption and maintenance);
3) Adaptive Scalability (replicable without reinventing); and
4)Systemic Sustainability (minimizing negative ecological and social externalities, long-term viability, lasting impact).
-consider the durability, ethics, replicability, and sustainability of their innovations;
-intentionally adopt the LeanSpark principles like frugality right from inception and embed it into the organizational structure and scale-up process;
-build interoperability from the design phase as India is a mobile-first country. For example, in the case of AI, design for Indian languages and for edge computing;
– adopt technology and organisational innovation as a lever for scaling up in the value chain;
– partner with larger organisations to overcome resource constraints while scaling.