More than one in five Indian college students has already started a business, while 43% aspire to become entrepreneurs, broadly in line with global averages, according to a report released on Wednesday by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Mandi.
However, the report found a gap between students’ business plans and the ventures they actually operate. The GUESSS India 2025 report, titled ‘How do we make student entrepreneurs?’, is based on responses from 25,783 students across more than 1,200 higher education institutions in 34 states and Union Territories (UTs). It found that 22% of Indian students had already started a business, compared with 23% globally, while 43% in both the Indian and global samples aspired to entrepreneurship. GUESSS India is part of the biennial Global University Entrepreneurial Spirit Students’ Survey (GUESSS), launched by the University of St Gallen, Switzerland, in 2003 to study students’ entrepreneurial ambitions, activities and influencing factors. The global survey drew more than 300,000 students from 57 countries in 2023. Released by IIT Mandi in partnership with Bengaluru-based REVA University, the survey found that 35.5% of Indian student businesses had recorded regular sales, compared with 33% globally. Nearly 31% of Indian student businesses with regular sales were founded in 2025, against 18% globally. artificial intelligence and digital businesses were among the most common entrepreneurial plans, only about one in 10 existing student-run businesses was digital While information technology.
“India’s students are as ambitious as any in the world, and those who start are building real businesses that already hire people,” said Dr Puran Singh, associate professor at IIT Mandi’s School of Management and country delegate for GUESSS India, who led the report. “Student entrepreneurship is central to how the School of Management thinks about management education: we want our students to build ventures and organisations, not only to manage them,” said Prof Anjan Swain, chair of IIT Mandi’s School of Management.
The survey also found that among students still developing their ventures, only 10% had made their first sale, compared with 23% globally. Repeat entrepreneurship, however, was more common in India: 41% of founders of student businesses with regular sales had closed an earlier venture and started another, against 33% globally. Meanwhile, 42% of Indian student entrepreneurs ran two or more businesses, compared with 25% worldwide.
