Hyderabad: Experts from American Telugu Association (ATA) believe that these are interesting times for startups to get investments from overseas, given that rules set by the United States for immigrants to start a business are getting stringent by the day. About 20 CEOs and investors, who own businesses in the US, were in T-hub to interact with 40-odd startups and possible partnerships on Thursday.
With the stringent visa rules in place, Indian origin CEOs believe that starting a company in the US was not favourable in the current scenario, unlike decades ago when they started off. It makes India the right place to start a new business, with skilled labour also available in the country. Jay Challa, co-founder of Ace Info Solutions and head of business ATA group, was confident that the United States would not shut doors completely for skilled labour.
Mr Challa said, “Politicians, whether in Telangana or the United States, talk something and do something else. United States does not want to shut the doors as it has to remain competitive with other countries. Even though there will be some initial impact on skilled labour wanting to migrate from India and other countries, prospects for the IT sector are good there in long term.”
Citing an example of Disney’s H-1B visa abuse, KPMG’s Karthik Gopalakrishnan said, “That Indian IT services were relying on labour arbitrage and because the cost of doing business is low is validation of that fact. However, what worked for companies in the past will not work in the future. There are opportunities for only those start-ups that are more innovative and creative in their business model.”
