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February 23, 2026 — 5:00am
Start-up firm Infoneoo is typical of India’s dynamic technology sector.
It was launched a little over a year ago but it already has hundreds of employees working from cubicles in a glass office tower on the outskirts of the sprawling capital Delhi. The company delivers “AI-led” business services to clients at home and abroad.
It has strong links to western Sydney.
When founders Manoj Matai and Sukanto Mitra were setting up Infoneoo, they were put in touch with an Australian IT firm called iSoft based in Bella Vista, near Castle Hill. It eventually made an investment in the fledgling Indian company.
“We were looking for someone who could invest but, more importantly, be a strategic partner,” Matai said in his Delhi office.
The two firms now have a “complementary relationship” that has opened up new opportunities, he says.
Infoneoo’s story is an example of the growing economic links between the subcontinent and western Sydney being forged by members of the Australian Indian community, especially those based in Parramatta and surrounding suburbs.
The two companies were brought together by Ameet Nandlaskar, founder of Innovesta, a company based in north-western Sydney that facilitates investments between Australia and India.
“It was a real win-win situation that is creating jobs on both sides,” says Nandlaskar of Infoneoo’s story. “I’m seeing a lot of interest and activity between Australia and India.”
Matai expresses similar optimism from Delhi. “This is the time for Australia and India,” he says.
More than one-third of residents in Parramatta and some surrounding suburbs were born in India. There is also a large Indian diaspora population in the north-west of Sydney including Schofields, The Ponds and Marsden Park.
These cultural connections with the subcontinent have helped make western and north-western Sydney a focal point for economic engagement between India and Australia. This encompasses a range of sectors including finance, IT, business services, travel, biotech and food.
That dynamic led Saravana Bhavan, the world’s largest vegetarian restaurant chain, to Parramatta. The company was looking to expand to Australia, betting that the Indian diaspora was growing fast enough to support them.
And since opening their first location in Parramatta in 2014, the chain has found huge success; it is eyeing its 12th expansion within Australia.
“We have opened in Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and are looking at Adelaide next. And it all started in Parramatta, where we opened based on the demographic make-up of the area,” says company director Shekar Mani.
He said it was demographics that drove the chain to Parramatta and fuelled the chain’s success. The Parramatta location is busy and it has a broad variety of patrons, from workers having lunch to families having dinner.
Mani says he is increasingly seeing non-Indians eat at his restaurants, a reflection of the shrinking cultural divide in Australia.
But Mani says the chain is “powered” by the Indian diaspora, who flock to the locations for affordable and familiar meals. He also believes the chain’s success is rooted in the diaspora’s growing purchasing power, and their influence over local economies.
“They have become the gatekeepers to the economic relationship between India and Australia. The Indian community is flourishing here. Indian migration has gone bonkers in the last five years, and they have built their own ecosystem.”
Mani says his chains are key cogs within that ecosystem. It is a major customer of imported ingredients and a large-scale employer of recently arrived migrants and students.
Like many businesses that have one foot in India and another in Australia, Saravana Bhavan acts as a cultural hub, an anchor for the diaspora and their growing economic influence. The firm has 33 outlets within India and 47 in other nations.
On the other side of Parramatta, at the border of neighbouring Harris Park, staff at Indian chain jewellers Malabar Gold and Diamonds are preparing for the daily rush of customers.
Malabar, one of the biggest jewellery chains globally, opened its doors in the area in 2024 to enormous fanfare. It immediately attracted lines of locals who recognised the brand.
Santosh Chikkamari, a business development executive at Malabar, said the business had expanded around the world following the global Indian diaspora.
“Just because they relocate doesn’t mean they stop buying gold. They don’t stop wearing gold; they don’t stop celebrating their festivals. So that emotion is always there with the Indian community, and we work with those emotions,” Chikkamari says.
Chikkamari describes being embraced warmly by the Indian diaspora, saying there is consistent demand, driven by the growing community.
“During our festivals, we can see up to 200 people lined up every day. We knew there was demand, and we strive to match it.
“The community wanted (our products). We just had to meet them where they are.”
Australia’s Indian-origin community has grown rapidly during the past 20 years and numbers about 1 million people. About 90 per cent of Indian-born migrants live in capital cities, especially Sydney and Melbourne.
Peter Varghese, a former secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade who authored an Indian economic strategy for the Australian government in 2018, says the economic influence of the Indian diaspora has expanded rapidly.
“When you consider that the diaspora’s numbers really only started picking up strongly around 2010, the impact it’s had has already been very significant across business, but also in terms of political engagement,” he says.
“And that has perhaps happened a little quicker than expected.”
Varghese says the diaspora community has an important role to play in facilitating Australia-India trade and investment.
India, with more than 1.4 billion people, is the world’s most populous nation. It is also the world’s fastest growing major economy and it is one of Australia’s biggest trading partners.
A historic trade deal signed between Australia and India in 2022 that reduced barriers to trade and investment has helped strengthen economic ties. A more ambitious pact called the Australia-India Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement is being negotiated.
The Parramatta region’s status as a hub for Australia’s Indian community was underscored by the visit of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the area in 2023.
Modi was feted by almost 20,000 ecstatic fans, mostly members of the diaspora, at a “reception” at the Qudos Bank arena in Olympic Park.
Harris Park, a suburb adjacent to Parramatta’s CBD, was put on the international map when Modi and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese unveiled a plaque commemorating the “Little India” restaurant strip in the neighbourhood.
Harris Park, home to more than 20 Indian eateries and sweet shops, is emblematic of the diaspora’s contribution to Australia’s food culture.
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