Nearly half of India’s startup ecosystem report low wellbeing; employees fare the worst: Study

In this study, low wellbeing means a respondent scored at or below the threshold set for an adapted version of the WHO-5 Well-Being Index. The index was used to assess how people in India’s startup ecosystem were doing emotionally and mentally. It was a wellbeing measure, not a clinical diagnosis.

The study compared scores across founders, employees, investors and ecosystem supporters. People below the threshold were counted as having low wellbeing. For example, 47.5% of all respondents fell at or below it, while employees recorded the highest share, at 54.3%.

The researchers caution that the findings show patterns rather than proof. The cutoff used in the adapted WHO-5 measure was not independently validated. This means the results highlight concerning wellbeing levels and relationships between workplace factors, but they cannot determine whether someone has a mental-health condition or prove that one factor caused another.

Low wellbeing was widespread across India’s startup ecosystem. Nearly half of all respondents, 47.5%, scored at or below the study’s wellbeing threshold. This included people working as founders, employees, investors and ecosystem supporters. The result suggests that wellbeing concerns were not limited to one role or type of participant.

The groups differed in their results. Employees had the highest proportion at or below the threshold, at 54.3%. The comparable figures were 45.2% for investors, 44.2% for ecosystem supporters and 42.9% for founders. These figures show a broad concern, with employees appearing particularly vulnerable.

The study also found that longer working hours were linked with poorer results. The share at or below the threshold rose from 37% among people working under 40 hours weekly to 51% among those working more than 50 hours. The report recommends practical workplace support, including anonymous checks and protected time-off.

The study included four groups: founders, employees, investors and ecosystem supporters. It surveyed 1,040 people, with 823 respondents included in the final analysis. Comparing these groups helped the researchers identify where wellbeing concerns were most concentrated across India’s startup ecosystem.

Employees had the highest share scoring at or below the wellbeing threshold, at 54.3%. The figures were lower for investors, at 45.2%, ecosystem supporters, at 44.2%, and founders, at 42.9%. Employees also reported lower energy, interest and engagement, without a matching increase in worry. The report said this could be mistaken for low motivation.

The study does not establish why employees scored worse. It does show that they carried the largest share of stress in the reported results. Founders, meanwhile, reported the highest worry but also showed high energy and engagement. The contrast points to different forms of strain across startup roles.

In the study, psychological safety centered on whether people felt safe saying they were struggling at work. It reflects the workplace environment around speaking up about personal difficulty. About 34.8% of respondents said they did not feel safe doing so, making this a widespread concern across the surveyed ecosystem.

The wellbeing difference was substantial. Respondents who felt safe speaking up had an average WHO-5 wellbeing score of 60. Those who did not feel safe had an average score of 39.5. This strong gap made psychological safety the factor most closely associated with wellbeing in the study.

The finding matters because silence can leave difficulties unspoken and unsupported. The report recommends manager training, confidential support and regular anonymous wellbeing checks. It also calls for protected time-off. These steps aim to make speaking up safer, although the study shows an association rather than proving that psychological safety directly caused better wellbeing.

When employees did not feel safe saying they were struggling, their wellbeing results were markedly worse. The study found that 88.3% of such employees scored at or below the wellbeing threshold. This was the sharpest warning in the report about the relationship between workplace voice and employee wellbeing.

The contrast was large among employees who did feel safe speaking up. Only 26.7% of them fell at or below the threshold. Across all respondents, those who felt safe had an average WHO-5 score of 60, compared with 39.5 among those who did not. The figures show how strongly the two factors moved together.

The study does not prove that feeling unsafe caused the lower scores. Still, it points to a clear workplace risk: employees may remain silent while struggling. The report recommends manager training, confidential support, anonymous checks and protected time-off to improve support and wellbeing.

The study found a clear relationship between longer working hours and lower wellbeing. Among people working under 40 hours a week, 37% scored at or below the wellbeing threshold. The figure increased to 43% for those working 40–50 hours and reached 51% for those working more than 50 hours.

The pattern suggests that extended working time often accompanies poorer wellbeing in the startup ecosystem. It does not prove that long hours caused the lower scores, because the study identified patterns rather than cause and effect. Still, the steady increase across hour groups makes working time an important workplace concern.

The report recommends regular anonymous wellbeing checks, manager training, confidential support and protected time-off. It also suggests that investors include wellbeing in due diligence and fund wellbeing programmes for portfolio companies. Sheetal Bahl said safer speaking up, support and real time-off could improve wellbeing dramatically.

Poor wellbeing in this study means scoring at or below a threshold on an adapted WHO-5 questionnaire. It does not mean that a participant was clinically diagnosed with depression, anxiety or another mental-health condition. The report explicitly cautions that its findings do not establish clinical diagnoses.

The study found relationships between wellbeing scores and factors such as psychological safety and working hours. For example, people who felt safe speaking up averaged 60, while those who did not averaged 39.5. Low wellbeing also increased from 37% among people working under 40 hours to 51% among those working over 50 hours.

These results show patterns, not proven causes. The study did not establish that unsafe workplaces or long hours directly produced lower wellbeing. In addition, the cutoff used in the adapted WHO-5 measure was not independently validated. The findings therefore identify concerns for further action and study, rather than making medical or causal claims.