Startup founders, VCs hit by Bengaluru floods bemoan city infrastructure

Founders and CEOs took to microblogging site Twitter as they chronicled their struggles to commute over the past two days even as employees were asked to work-from-hiome by most companies.

“ Ten years ago people moved away from Mumbai because of rising cost of living and started setting up headquarters in Bengaluru or Pune. Today, there is no advantage that Bengaluru brings since the cost of living is rising and the civic infrastructure is crumbling. Every founder (in Bengaluru) is troubled, and there might be a mass exodus (of businesses) from the city. This incident is just the tipping point. There should be a focus on building the public infrastructure so that the (startup) ecosystem thrives,” said Jitendra Gupta, founder and chief executive officer, Jupiter, a fintech startup.

Gupta, who recently moved to Bengaluru from Mumbai had tweeted about crossing 500 metres over a course of three hours on Monday as he attempted to reach his workplace in the HSR locality, which houses several of India’s new age businesses.

He said as a last resort the startup community will have to partner with the government to work through these infrastructure snarls. “ We have put so much effort and time into building our startups in this city. But as a founder we will have to think of alternatives where we build small offices across the country rather than concentrating our workforce in one city..,” Gupta added.

“All my meetings are postponed because of the rain havoc…It’s quite frustrating to see the infrastructure crumbling like this. I have other founders calling me to relocate and evacuate their families as the waterlogging is worse in certain other parts,” one of the top founders of an ecommerce startup from Bengaluru said. According to him many colleagues are finding it hard to relocate from heavily affected areas as they have families with them and pets, in some cases. “Things that can be done virtually–have been moved online and that’s how it’s going to be till normalcy returns,” this entrepreneur added.

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Evacuation underway

Woes for founders did not end here as several of them saw their houses being flooded causing them to take help from local authorities to evacuate themselves and their families.

Apartment buildings including – Epsilon in Marathahalli, Adarsh Palm Retreat in Bellandur, DivyaSree 77 in Yemlur, which have been severely affected are home to some of the most prominent names in the Indian startup ecosystem. Gaurav Munjal, cofounder and chief executive of Unacademy, an edtech startup, tweeted a video of his family being evacuated on a tractor, “Family and my pet Albus has been evacuated on a tractor from our society that’s now submerged. Things are bad. Please take care. DM me if you need any help, I’ll try my best to help,” added the entrepreneur.

Ishaan Mittal, a managing director at venture capital fund, Sequoia Capital India, tweeted about an evacuation drive of 300 families at his apartment society in Yemlur as basements continued to be waterlogged with no electricity. “ It’s horrific to experience the bottom (hopefully) of Bangalore’s infrastructure. Today we had to evacuate our apartment along with 300 other families. Society (In Yemlur) has no electricity and water. 2 basements are filled with water with many cars stuck in them
#peakbengaluru,” said Mittal.

VC fund Kalaari Capital’s founder and managing director, Vani Kola tweeted about her ‘futile attempt’ to reach the Bengaluru Airport, but gave up three hours after. “ This was me trying to reach the airport in Bengaluru. A futile attempt. I gave up after 3 hours. My heart goes out to the plight of people suffering in this situation. As a major city, the IT capital, shouldn’t we have the basic infrastructure in place?,” tweeted Kola.

WFH, but no infrastructure
With the India Meteorological Department (IMD) predicting more rains in Bengaluru, several companies have asked their employees to work from home. “ Given the weather forecast and local commute challenges, it is recommended that all employees to continue to work from home for the rest of the week. We will continue to monitor and share updates on the development,” read an internal memo from Flipkart to its employees on Monday.

However, as rains flooded the city, power outages forced employees to mark themselves absent from work, impacting productivity.

“ We are all used to working from home and have robust policies in place due to covid. But what’s different in this situation is that there is no power or internet available to employees due to rains (and water logging), which is the sad part. And our entry level associates are the most impacted since they live in buildings with no power backup,” said Arjun Mohan, chief executive officer of upGrad who himself had to take a ride on the tractor from locals to reach his office in Koramangala.

Mohan added that affected regions such as Bellandur and Whitefield will have to follow similar models like Electronic City, where municipalities are managed jointly by the government and corporations housed in the region.

“Infrastructure is a big issue and that is impacting productivity. It is not that the authorities don’t have the intent but the execution continues to be very slow..,” added Mohan.