47.5% of startup ecosystem score low on wellbeing, employees fare worst: State of Mind report
New Delhi, Oct 8, 2026:
Nearly half or 47.5% of people working in the Indian startup ecosystem score low on wellbeing, with perceived psychological safety - or whether people feel safe admitting they are struggling at work, being the factor most strongly associated with wellbeing across the sample.
The study, State of Mind: The Startup Ecosystem, surveyed 823 participants - founders, employees, investors, and ecosystem supporters across India. Initiated by Sheetal Bahl, Founder and Partner at Merak Ventures, and authored by Priyanka Kartari, Dr. Sukhmani Pal, and Dr Dilip Panniker, it used an adapted version of the WHO-5 Well-Being Index alongside respondents’ own assessment of how they were doing.
Employees recorded the poorest rate of wellbeing with 54.3 precent falling below the threshold, compared with 45.2 percent among investors, 44.2 percent among ecosystem supporters and 42.9 percent among founders. The findings challenge the emphasis on founder distress, identifying employees as the group needing the most attention.
Feeling safe to acknowledge workplace struggles showed the strongest association with wellbeing. Overall, 34.8 percent felt unsafe speaking up. Among employees who felt unsafe, 88.3 percent recorded low wellbeing, compared with 26.7 percent among those who felt safe. The findings show an association without establishing causation.
Of the 391 respondents who scored low on wellbeing, 35.3 percent described themselves as thriving or doing okay, suggesting that strain can go unrecognised or unacknowledged. Only 15.1 percent reported seeking professional help.
“To those who are part of it, it will unlikely come as a surprise how poorly the ecosystem is faring. But this study highlights some nuances, like while all groups show concerning results, it is employees who carry the largest share of stress. The silver lining is that the fixes are not rocket science – make it safer for people to speak up, give them some support, and allow them real time-off, and the wellbeing improves dramatically,” Bahl said.
The initiative stemmed out of Bahl’s own mental health challenges, which led him to take a short sabbatical in 2025. He started conversations around mental health in the startup ecosystem earlier this year, organizing meetups in Delhi, Bangalore, and Bombay. These led to multiple other smaller initiatives, but he overwhelmingly found that while mental health was widely acknowledged as a very important topic, it was not enough to tip people over to action. He hopes that with real data, the mental health crisis will be more difficult for founders and investors to ignore.
He is supported by a core group that is committed to improving mental health in the startup ecosystem. In addition to the study co-authors it includes Gaurav Agarwal, Co-founder of 1mg, and Akshit Mathur.
Industry findings associate sustained exhaustion with entrepreneurs leaving their businesses and employees taking more sick leave or seeking other jobs. Wellbeing therefore matters to business continuity, staff retention and the ecosystem’s ability to sustain growth.
The report recommends anonymous wellbeing checks, confidential internal/ external support, manager training and protected time off. It also calls on investors to include wellbeing in due diligence and fund ongoing support to portfolio companies, its founders and employees both.
The anonymous, self-selected survey received 1,040 submissions, with 823 retained after checks and exclusions. It used an adapted World Health Organization Five-item Well-Being Index, with a borrowed cutoff not independently validated for the adaptation. The findings do not establish clinical diagnoses.
The report comes ahead of World Mental Health Day on October 10, 2026, highlighting the need for safer workplaces and sustained mental health support across the startup ecosystem.
About State of Mind
State of Mind: The Startup Ecosystem is the first large-scale study of mental health across India’s startup ecosystem. It was initiated by Sheetal Bahl in his individual capacity and authored by Priyanka Kartari, Dr. Sukhmani Pal, and Dr Dilip Panniker.
The anonymous, cross-sectional survey received 1,040 submissions. Following attention checks and exclusions, 823 responses formed the final analysis sample: 347 founders or co-founders, 300 startup employees, 124 investors and 52 ecosystem supporters.
Wellbeing was assessed using an adapted version of the WHO-5 Well-Being Index. The study applied the original WHO-5 score of 50 as its low-wellbeing threshold; this threshold has not been independently validated for the adaptation used in the study.
The sample was self-selected and captures responses at one point in time. Employees in the sample were younger than the other groups, and the employee gap narrowed after adjusting for age, pronoun group and weekly working hours. The findings describe associations within the sample and do not establish causation or population-wide prevalence.
Study link: State of Mind