Mangaluru adds 60 tech firms, 13,000 jobs in 36 months; 1 million sq ft of offices under way
The Karnataka Digital Economy Mission (KDEM) says its Mangaluru cluster has added more than 60 new technology companies and over 13,000 workers in the last 36 months, and that more than one million square feet of Grade-A office space is now under construction in the region.
KDEM chief executive officer Sanjeev Kumar Gupta gave the figures on Wednesday at the inaugural session of the sixth edition of Mangaluru Technovanza – 2026.
He set out a long-term vision for the cluster: 2,00,000 technology jobs, ₹40,000 crore in technology exports, more than 4,000 startups, over 80 Global Capability Centres (GCCs) and 10 Centres of Excellence, supported by what he described as a $10 billion coastal knowledge economy. "This is not aspirational, it is already under way," he said.
Mr Gupta said the region's strengths lay in safety, healthcare and quality of life, and cited about 15 GCCs, 102 global brand showrooms and a growing technology workforce as the foundation for that plan.
He also said the region's technology ecosystem now accounts for ₹35,000 crore in total exports, with 35,000 professionals working on site and 20,000 professionals working remotely.
Rohith Bhat, founder of wrkwrk, 99Games and Robosoft, described how the effort began. "Three years ago, a small group of us sat in a room and decided we wouldn't wait for someone else to give this region its direction," he said. That group set itself targets of two lakh IT professionals, 4,000 startups, five unicorns and a rise in the region's GDP from $20 billion to $100 billion by 2034.
Mr Bhat said that vision was beginning to take shape. He said the number of startups in the region had grown by about a third, two homegrown companies had completed initial public offerings (IPOs) in the last six weeks, and a Startup Accelerator backed by ₹9.5 crore in government support had been established. An angel network of 25 local investors is writing the region's first cheques, he said, while a hardware ecosystem is taking shape with international partners.
KDEM is a Karnataka government initiative set up to spread the digital economy beyond Bengaluru. GCCs, or Global Capability Centres, are offices that multinational companies establish to handle technology, research and business operations for their global networks.
According to KDEM, the city and the surrounding region now host more than 300 technology companies, over 400 startups and a technology workforce of more than 50,000.
The event brought together 600 delegates, 70 startups, 60 GCCs and more than 20 investors.
The jobs, export and construction figures cited at the event were released by KDEM and the organisers. The targets described by Mr Gupta and Mr Bhat are the stated goals of the cluster, not outcomes already achieved, and independent verification of the employment and office-space estimates was not immediately available.
