India's leading tech startups planning to launch a lobby group Indiatech.org

India's leading tech startups including Flipkart, ride-hailing service Ola, and travel portal MakeMyTrip are joining hands to form an industry body that will represent local ventures and their interests, seeking protection from resourceful global rivals, reports Economic Times.

Citing people in the know of the things, the report said that the Nasscom like lobby group — Indiatech.org — will be led by Sachin Bansal, co-founder of Flipkart, and the founding president and chairman will appoint a former IAS officer as CEO.

Online classifieds platform Quikr and Airtel scion Kavin Bharti Mittal’s Hike are the other founding members of the association. While, Flipkart, Ola, MakeMyTrip, Quikr and Hike are expected to be a part of the group’s executive committee, global investors like Tiger Global, Softbank and Steadview Capital have also been invited to join the group.

Flipkart and Ola have been making a case for a ‘level playing field’ for Indian startups since long. At the IAMAI India Digital Summit, earlier this year, Flipkart's Sachin Bansal said, “Indian companies can and should build products which are world-class and take them globally. Zomato, Practo and Freshdesk are clear examples. We need to figure out how do we create a level playing field so our news, restaurant apps, or anything in the Internet space doesn’t get prematurely killed by a company coming from China.”

An organized group like Indiatech.org is expected to provide a cohesive voice and structured platform to local players to voice out their demand for policy support.