While the business landscape is rapidly changing in 2026, with AI said to take over many sectors, startups remain the backbone of the Indian economy as evident by the celebrations of National Startup Day 2026.
Are you too an aspiring entrepreneur looking for the next scalable idea? Here is a list of five startups for your multi-national company.
Up and coming Sectors in 2025
- Sustainable Development
While sustainable development is rooted in local climate and knowledge, the SDGs themselves prioritise global corporation and the role of financial institutions in our move towards an eco-friendly and fair trade world. In 2035, India was one of the top 100 countries on the same list and climate resilient development remains the need of the hour. While there are solutions like a sustainable marketplace as seen with Our Better Planet, for an MNC centric approach, an aspiring founder can look at renewable energy solutions ranging from ethical solar and wind farms or clean energy storage to green transpor. If you wish to have an impact while turning a profit, there are companies like GrowDiesel with their waste to biofuel programs that you can study or simply look at the problems with clean energy and transportation and take a chance at solving them. There are also possibilities like starting an environment auditing firm, provided you can keep track of multiple countries’ rules and laws alongside the global ones. Perhaps, you can even look at how to reduce the resource intensivity of AI models or use the heat they generate to cool cities!
- Ethical Artificial intelligence
Artificial Intelligence is changing the way we work, play, and rest. Despite the controversies over its environment impact or the data storage centers and how it can be misused as shown by the recent rise of non-consensual sexual image generation, AI is most likely to stay a part of our lives, which opens a whole new field of jobs from AI lawyers to ethical AI developers. For a MNC, building their own AI models or solving existing problems and innovating how to work faster with the least negative impact could be the way to go.
- Waste Management
Another lucrative option is Waste Management and Ecosystem Restoration services. While it doesn’t look like it, this is an essential task which can be used to turn quite a profit. Hannah Ritchie, PhD and author of Not the End of the World, mentions innovative cleanup projects which deal with issues like ocean plastic, something that can stopped with proper waste management. While Dekodar highlights challenges such as regulatory compliance that could hinder water management industries ,Tech SCI-Research had said this is a space that could be a $4.3 billion market by 2025. And there are multiple ways of managing waste from upcycling systems to recycling projects that also help provide employment and advance development in our country.
- Health Tech Services
Digitising health and ensuring everyone has access to insurance and healthcare is one of the needs of India today. A growing sector in this is the mental health sector. While many are turning to AI therapy, that can be harmful given how unregulated it is and how it has been shown to have a confirmation bias. Concerns such as confidentiality and the human understanding of behaviour alongside appeasement by AI will be factors to consider if starting a human-AI combined mental health service. Or you can start a human centric platform for the same to bypass security issues with AI.
- Cybersecurity
With digital threats and scams on the rise, alongside misuse of AI, estimates call this a booming market. While it is true that one will have to abide by multiple data protection laws and create awareness of the same in the public, for a MNC this is a lucrative opportunity to provide safety to the people and financial security to their organization.
Other sectors like Ed-tech, multimedia platforms including those that work with various regional and global languages, the hospitality and care industry and sustainable businesses like urban farms coupled with Agro tourism are growing businesses, especially in India which aims to to become of the largest economies of the world while simultaneously reducing our emissions.
So what are you waiting for? Stay tuned to NB news to get more details on these various markets.
