Let’s take a moment to appreciate how startups have helped Chennai

Tech startups. We love them, but almost always love to hate them. We question their soaring valuations, we question their business models, their massive discounts to acquire customers and their very existence. But all of us use their services in some form or the other. Be it Uber, MakeMyTip, Practo, Zomato or Flipkart, they’ve all made our lives a lot simpler. There’s no denying this fact.

Today (and I’m sure in the coming days) a number of these companies came out to help Chennaiites stuck in the biggest disaster they’ve ever faced. Daily life has come to a halt and this is a national disaster of unimaginable proportions. The unprecedented destruction has left many of us wanting to help. Startups have a network; they have a database of users and some of them used these simple resources to reach out to residents in desperate need for help. This post is to call out some companies who have come out and offered their help, even if they didn’t have to.

 1. Paytm

2. Uber

3. Zomato (whose CEO was crowd-sourcing ideas from twitter to help)

4. Ola

5. IndiGo

Honorable mentions who are not startups - Airtel and BSNL have waived off their usual call and data charges. 

I'm sure there are more to be added to this list. Please let me know if I've missed out something and will definitely update the post.