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This year, had two stops on its trek to find the next big startup: Mountain View and Bengaluru (also known as Bangalore).

As the famed early-stage accelerator ups the amount of startups it invests in each year, India has become a focus. In this summer鈥檚 batch, 12 startups were from India, compared to five from the same time period a year prior. Applications to the accelerator from India increased by 50 percent, too.

, a partner at YC and the previous founder of Homejoy, even lived in India for a month prior to the pitch day to 鈥済et a sense of what the Indian consumer was like.鈥� Then, Cheung and three other YC partners conducted 140 interviews with Indian startups from 鈥檚 headquarters, a YC alum backed by Facebook. About 8 percent of those startups were accepted.

Before we learn more about those startups, here鈥檚 a teaser for you: Cheung told me that India, like China, was previously known to 鈥渃opy cat things that worked in the U.S.鈥�

鈥淏ut now they鈥檙e distinctly not doing that, they鈥檙e coming out with these big products,鈥� she said during a phone call Wednesday.

Now, onto the big products.

The WhatsApp Wave

During YC Demo Day, a few founders cited WhatsApp as part of their business strategy, specifically its growth and influence within India.

wants to leverage WhatsApp to match low-skilled and skilled workers with on-demand companies that need labor. , the founder of the company, said WhatsApp has 400 million users in India, and 96 percent of smartphone users in the region use WhatsApp.

Cheung said that she always tells startups to 鈥渢ake advantage of what [is] in front of them.鈥� Since WhatsApp is allowing people to build atop them right now, now is the time to leverage the platform for customer acquisition, she added.

In some ways, it鈥檚 a gamble. Building your startup atop a social media platform is risky. At any given time, the company can stop sharing access to its API. It could, in theory, kill your business on a whim and get away with it. The concept isn鈥檛 crazy: , and Google鈥檚 also impacted competitors.

But Krishna assured me that he鈥檚 working with WhatsApp 鈥減retty closely鈥� to secure a solid relationship. If not, the 12 million on-demand workers, and 320 low-skilled workers, could lose the app.

also said during its presentation that it would acquire customers through to build out its online pharmacy in India, citing the messaging app鈥檚 prominence in the area.

Cheung said she thinks we鈥檙e going to see a 鈥渇lood of really big startups built on top of WhatsApp鈥� but that startups need to not be reliant on just one platform. Diversification equals protection.

The Indian Consumer

One surprise from pitch day in Bangalore, according to Cheung, was that Indian startups were straying from a once-normal stereotype: Global SaaS companies.

鈥淭hey鈥檙e building for the Indian consumer,鈥� she said.

Take , for example. The company is connecting gas stations to truck drivers, and delivers fuel directly to customers.聽CEO told me that he is offering an app to truck drivers that allows them to request gas delivery. There鈥檚 a live dashboard at their fingertips, he said.聽Plus, Gupta said, MyPetrolPump is helping everyone avoid fuel theft.

鈥淔uel theft happens here,鈥� he told me. 鈥淵ou鈥檒l find that drivers collude with operators of gas stations in India.鈥� MyPetrolPump managing that transaction will help create balance, he hopes. The company raised $1.6 million last month from Y Combinator and . Now, Gupta said he is working to raise a $10 million Series A round.

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Another consumer-friendly startup is . It wants to make podcasts more accessible and understandable to people around India. On stage during Demo Day, a co-founder said that half a billion people are coming online in India鈥攂ut there is no podcast platform that works well there.

鈥淪potify has no traction, and the only available audio content is on YouTube, which gives broken audio,鈥� the company said. So, they鈥檙e working with 2,500 creators to bring audio in every Indian language to the populace.

And with that we鈥檒l step back and take a balcony view of YC鈥檚 tagline: 鈥淢ake something people want.鈥� It seems from this recent crop of startups, that鈥檚 exactly what India’s entrepreneurs have been doing.

Illustration Credit:聽