The Bengal Global Business Summit 2023 that just concluded was a high-profile event aimed at boosting investment and economic growth in West Bengal, and Caravel Labs was well-represented there with James, Souvik and I attending as delegates. It concluded with substantial investment commitments totaling approximately $45 billion, including significant pledges from some of the biggest Indian conglomerates, in all kinds of sectors from telecom infrastructure to IT services, from education to healthcare, and from manufacturing of railway rolling stock to food processing. The summit also saw the unveiling of key policy initiatives to promote exports, modernize logistics, and encourage renewable energy and technology development in the state. 

West Bengal's current favorable conditions contrast sharply with its historical reputation, marred by decades-old challenges. In the past, the state grappled with political instability and labor unrest in the 1960s and 70s, which negatively impacted business and investor confidence. Infrastructure was another major issue, with the state struggling to respond to crises from World War II, the partition of India, and the 1970s genocide in East Pakistan. This led to significant problems in transportation, power supply, and urban development, lasting into the 1980s and 90s. Additionally, bureaucratic red tape and regulatory hurdles previously hampered rapid business growth and investment. However, recent developments and investor testimonies at a summit indicate these issues have largely been resolved over the last decade.  

Billionaire investors are astute businesspeople above everything, and the financial commitment they made at the summit perhaps is the best endorsement of the business climate in the state. They also shared insights on the factors that influenced their decision to invest in the state. Key attractions include its strategic location, advantageous for accessing markets in Southeast Asia and Northeast India. The state boasts the fourth-largest economy in India, with a diverse range of sectors including agriculture, industry, IT, textiles, and services. This sectoral diversity positions Bengal as an attractive investment destination for both traditional and modern industries. Furthermore, West Bengal benefits from a skilled workforce, bolstered by its educational institutions and training facilities. Government initiatives promoting investment through infrastructure development, policy reforms, and incentives also contribute to making West Bengal an appealing destination for investors. 

For Caravel Labs, the above was a validation and not a surprise. As I mentioned in my speech during the IT & ITeS breakout session, our experience – and the objective data that we have collected – in our three years in Kolkata also point to the same advantages and potential.  

Caravel Labs was established with the mission to bring top-tier software engineering practices and tools, typically found in high-performing product engineering teams in Silicon Valley and the Pacific Northwest, to innovators using bespoke software solutions tackling humanity's most pressing problems. This approach was distinct from the IT services industry's “pay for effort” business model, which creates a natural barrier to the adoption of software engineering practices that reduce human toil, a key principle in high-performance software engineering. After all, reducing human toil in a “pay for effort” business model is akin to expecting Lipton to sell less tea or Ford to sell less cars. It simply goes against the business model. The founders, leveraging their experience at Microsoft, aimed to create a global engineering hub that embodied these ideals. Their vision was to democratize access to high-performance software engineering, particularly targeting markets like Southeast Asia. To achieve this, they sought not only technical proficiency but also a deep understanding and empathy for software users, and a team culturally and socioeconomically diverse, connected with their communities and the broader global society. Plato’s famous words that “what is honored in a country is cultivated there,” is applicable to any unit of human society including cities, companies, teams, and families, and this is what was top of our mind when we looked for a place to build our global engineering hub. Kolkata was a natural and unanimous choice, considering the criteria outlined in their vision and mission: 

Three years later, we have the confidence that our decision in building our global engineering hub in Kolkata was the right one and are upbeat about our plans to make a permanent footprint in Bengal. And if you are a tech startup looking for a place on our fair planet to build your world-changing team, Kolkata would get an unqualified endorsement from us. And if our endorsement is not enough, perhaps we could all take into cognizance what I consider the most inspiring quote at BGBS 2023, by Mr. Sanjiv Puri, Chairman & Managing Director of ITC Limited, and President-Designate of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in describing his workforce in Bengal, which he described as the most productive in his organization. According to him, they provide a unique combination of “talent, passion and compassion.”