India has the world's fifth-largest economy after three decades of rapid growth with a gross domestic product (GDP) of 3.57 trillion U.S. dollars as of 2023. India is also the world's largest democracy and the second-most populous country behind China with a 2023 population of 1.45 billion people. Many people live in poverty due to India's high levels of income inequality but the country has maintained a long tr🌌adition of entrep✱reneurship and wealth creation.

Many Indian entrepreneurs have created substᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚantial fortunes. Some of those who appear on our list are historical figures who built their fortunes during the ris🐻e of the Indian economy. Others are still running their companies in 2024.

1. Dhirubhai Ambani

Dhirubhai Ambani (1932–2002) was an Indian businessman who started out humbly by selling traditional snacks to religious pilgrims. His business soon grew and he expanded and diversified into industries including telecommunications, power generation, information technology, consumer goods, and logistics.

Reliance Industries is India's largest private company and is listed on the Fortune 500. Ambani's son runs Reliance and is one of India's wealthiest people. Mukesh Ambani, 67, was worth $119.7 billion as of Sept. 28, 2024, according to Forbes.

2. Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata

Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata or JRD Tata (1904–1993) was born in Paris to Indian and French parents. He trained as an aviator in Europe and later became India's first commercial airline pilot. He set out on his own working for the family business, TATA group, and built TATA Airlines which ultimately became the modern Air India.

TATA owned nearly 100 businesses across many industries by the time of JRD Tata's death. Tata Motors, his automobile venture, produces economical automobiles that nearly all working Indians can afford to own. JRD Tata is descended from Jamsetji Tata who founded the TATA group of companies in the mid-1800s.

3. Nagavara Ramarao Narayana Murthy

Nagavara Ramarao Narayana Murthy, age 78, is an Indian entrepreneur who co-founded IT giant Infosys (INFY) with an initial investment of 10,000 rupees or about $250.

With a net worth of $5.3 billion, he is often referred to as the father of the Indian IT industry. He 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:served as CEO of Infosys from 1981 until 2002 and then as its chair until 2011. Infosys had a market capitalization of about $94.5 billion as of Sept. 27, 2024.

4. Shiv Nadar

Shiv Nadar, 79, founded HCL Infosystems in 1976 with an investment of a few thousand dollars, selling calculators and microcomputers. HCL earned $10 billion in revenue by 2021, becoming one of the first tech companies to hit the billion-dollar milestone. HCL has continued to grow, making Nadar a billionaire worth over $40.6 billion as of Sept. 28, 2024.

5. Lakshmi Niwas Mittal

Lakshmi Niwas Mittal, 74, is an Indian entrepreneur who began his career working for his father's steel business. He later set out on his own due to family infighting and created one of the largest steelmakers in the world, ArcelorMittal (MT). ArcelorMittal had a market capitalization of $17.75 billion as of Sept. 27, 2024. Mittal was worth about $16.7 billion as of Sept. 28, 2024.

6. Ghanshyam Das Birla

Ghanshyam Das Birla (1894-1983) was a well-known Indian businessman who started his first company in the early 1900s operating a cotton and textile mill. Birla's businesses also included significant paper and sugar production by 1919. Birla Group was a multi-sector global conglomerate by the time Birla died.

His great-grandson Kumar Mangalam Birla, 57, runs the company and commands a net worth of $24.8 billion as of Sept. 28, 2024.

7. Dilip Shanghvi

Dilip Shanghvi, 68, started Sun Pharmaceutical in 1983 with a meager 10,000 rupee investment or approximately $200. The son of a pharmaceutical distributor, Shanghvi knew what he was doing. That investment has grown to a market cap of $52 billion as of September 2024 through gradual development and a series of acquisitions, making Sun Pharma India's largest pharmaceutical company. Shanghvi had a net worth of around $32 billion as of Sept. 28, 2024.

8. Azim Premji

Azim Premji, 79, was worth an estimated $12.2 billion as of Sept. 28, 2024 and is the former chair of Wipro Industries (WIT), a diversified software and technology company that many have compared to Microsoft. Premji isℱ sometimes referred to as India's Bill Gates along with his informal♏ title as "czar" of the Indian IT industry.

9. Mukesh Jagtiani

Mukesh "Micky" Jagtiani passed away in May 2023 at age 71. Jagtiani was an Indian-Emirati businessman who had spent most of his life outside of India. He was educated in Mumbai and Beirut, but he moved to London for accounting school before dropping out. He started his first company while driving a taxi and his company eventually grew into the retail and real estate giant Landmark, still based out of Dubai. Jagtiani was worth about $5.2 billion when he died.

10. Ardeshir Godrej

Ardeshir Godrej (1868-1936) co-founded the Godrej Group, a diversified conglomerate with interests in real estate, consumer products, security, household appliances, and industrial tools. The company had modest beginnings. Ardeshir and his brother succeeded at locksmithing after failed ventures into hand-fashioned medical devices.

Godrej Group was founded in 1897 and the Godrej companies had revenues of over $1.66 billion as of September 2024. His grandson, Adi Godrej, 82, runs the company and was worth $4.2 billion as of Sept. 28, 2024.

Top Female Entrepreneurs in India

Women in India have historically had fewer opportunities than men to participate in business and found companies due to gender inequality in the country. India ranked 126 out of 146 countries for gender equality in the 2024 Gender Gap Index reported by the World Economic Forum. The ranking includes women's participation in the labor market and access to economic opportunities.

Large companies led by women entrepreneurs have seen great success in India in the last decades, however. The majority of billionaire businesswomen in India still lead companies that were founded by a family member but there's also been a rise in self-made Indian female billionaires.

Falguni Nayar

Falguni Nayar began her career as an investment banker and broker, including managing director at Kotak Mahindra Capital. She went on to found Nykaa, an e-commerce company that sells beauty, personal care, and other wellness products. The initial public offering (IPO) of Nykaa raised $700 million in 2021 with a $13 billion valuation and it increased her personal wealth by 963%.

Falguni serves as Nykaa's CEO. She was awarded Ernest & Young's EY Start-Up Entrepreneur of the Year in 2019 and Businesswoman of the Year by the Economic Times Awards for Corporate Excellence. She was also named one of Asia's Power Businesswomen by Forbes Asia in 2019 and Business Person of the Year 2019 by Vogue India.

Falguni is the 10th wealthiest self-made billionaire woman globally and the wealthiest self-made billionaire woman in India, worth $3.5 billion as of August 2024. Nkyaa was named one of Time's 100 Most Influential Companies of 2022.

Radha Vembu

Radha Vembu is one of the co-founders of Zoho Corporation, a technology company that makes software and other online business tools. She's served as product manager of its Zoho Mail division since 2007 and oversees Zoho Workplace along with being involved in nearly every other division in the company. Zoho is a private company so it has never had an IPO.

Zoho experienced a revenue increase to more than $1 billion in 2021, increasing Vembu's private wealth by 127%. She was worth $3.3 billion as of August 2024.

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw is the founder of Biocom, a pharmaceutical company she started in her garage in 1978. Biocom has become a global pharmaceutical brand that manufactures generic active pharmaceutical ingredients that are sold in more than 120 countries.

Mazumdar-Shaw is a global business leader and serves as chair of the Biocon board along with other board memberships in multiple organizations around the world. They include The Centre for Social and Economic Progress, the France-India Foundation, and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. She was worth $3.3 billion as of August 2024.

The Bottom Line

India has a long tradition of 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:entrepreneurship with its own distinct flavor. Rather than founding technology firms, many Indian entrepreneurs have come 💝from hard-working, humble beginnings and they've created conglomerates that ♊were passed down as family businesses. Modern Indian entrepreneurs are moving into tech spaces, however, including software and e-commerce.

India continues to experience economic growth. It still demonstrates one of the highest rates of income inequality in the world, however, with a population of more than 1.4 billion people and a GDP per capita of just $1,915 per year as of 2020.