Startup employees report lowest wellbeing, study finds

Kolkata: Nearly half of people working across India’s startup ecosystem are experiencing low levels of wellbeing, with employees emerging as the most affected group, according to a new study that challenges the industry’s predominant focus on founder burnout.

About 47.5% of the 823 founders, employees, investors and ecosystem supporters surveyed scored below the study’s low-wellbeing threshold, according to State of Mind: The Startup Ecosystem, initiated by Merak Ventures founder and partner Sheetal Bahl.

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Employees recorded the poorest wellbeing outcomes, with 54.3% falling below the threshold, compared with 45.2% of investors, 44.2% of ecosystem supporters and 42.9% of founders.

The report identifies psychological safety—whether people feel safe acknowledging that they are struggling at work—as the factor most strongly associated with wellbeing.

About 34.8% of respondents said they did not feel safe speaking up about workplace struggles. Among employees who felt unsafe speaking up, 88.3% recorded low wellbeing, compared with 26.7% among those who felt safe. The study, however, cautions that these findings show an association and do not establish causation.

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The findings also point to a significant gap between how people feel and how they perceive their own wellbeing. Of the 391 respondents who scored low on wellbeing, 35.3% nevertheless described themselves as either thriving or doing okay. Just 15.1% said they had sought 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,” Bahl said. “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.”

The study surveyed 1,040 people through an anonymous, self-selected survey, with 823 responses retained after attention checks and exclusions. The final sample comprised 347 founders or co-founders, 300 startup employees, 124 investors and 52 ecosystem supporters.

Wellbeing was assessed using an adapted version of the World Health Organization’s five-item Well-Being Index (WHO-5). The study used the original WHO-5 score of 50 as the low-wellbeing cutoff, though the report notes that this threshold has not been independently validated for the adaptation used.

The findings come amid growing concerns over burnout, long working hours and employee attrition in India’s startup ecosystem. Sustained exhaustion can contribute to entrepreneurs stepping away from their businesses and employees taking more sick leave or looking for other jobs, making wellbeing an issue not only of individual health but also of business continuity and talent retention.

The report recommends anonymous wellbeing assessments, confidential internal and external support, manager training and protected time off. It also calls on investors to consider wellbeing as part of due diligence and provide continuing support to portfolio companies, covering both founders and employees.

The initiative grew out of Bahl’s own experience with mental health challenges, which led him to take a short sabbatical in 2025. He subsequently began conversations on mental health in the startup ecosystem and organised meetups in Delhi, Bengaluru and Mumbai earlier this year.

The report’s authors said those conversations showed that while mental health was widely recognised as an important issue, awareness was not necessarily translating into action. The study aims to provide data that could make it harder for founders and investors to overlook the issue.

The study is being released ahead of World Mental Health Day on October 10, putting the spotlight on psychological safety and mental health support in one of India’s fastest-growing employment ecosystems.

The study was authored by Priyanka Kartari, Dr Sukhmani Pal and Dr Dilip Panniker. Bahl is supported by a core group working on mental health in the startup ecosystem, including 1mg co-founder Gaurav Agarwal and Akshit Mathur.