Recognised startups jumped from 471 in 2016 to 72,993 in 2022 due to active govt intervention: Ministry of Commerce & Industry

Launched in 2016, the Startup India initiative aims to build a stronger ecosystem for nurturing India’s startup culture that would further drive our economic growth, support entrepreneurship, and enable large-scale employment opportunities.

More than 4,500 Startups in India have been recognized by Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) in sectors relating to emerging technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), robotics, artificial intelligence, analytics, etc, the ministry said.

To nurture ideas and innovations (knowledge-based and technology-driven) into successful startups, the Department of Science and Technology (DST) launched an umbrella programme called National Initiative for Developing and Harnessing Innovations (NIDHI) in the year 2016.

This includes fellowships to the students opting for entrepreneurship through Entrepreneurs-In-Residence (EIR) Program, Promoting and Accelerating Young and Aspiring Innovators and Startups (PRAYAS) program by providing financial support for converting ideas into prototypes, availability of early stage Seed support to incubated ventures, providing mentoring and investment readiness support through Accelerators, and creating Centres of Excellence (CoE) in incubation.

The Department of Biotechnology, through Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC), supports and nurtures startups in the Biotechnology sector. The major schemes are BioNEST Scheme (Bio incubators Nurturing Entrepreneurship for Scaling Technologies) and Biotechnology Ignition Grant (BIG) schemes.

In order to promote innovation and agripreneurship by providing financial support and nurturing the incubation ecosystem Department of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare under the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana- Remunerative Approaches for Agriculture and Allied Sector Rejuvenation (RKVY-RAFTAAR) scheme has launched “Innovation and Agri-entrepreneur development” programme, as a component.

Under this sector agriculture and allied sectors like Agro-processing, Food Technology & Value Addition, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), Information & Communication Technology (ICT), Block Chain Technology (BCT), precision farming and Digital agriculture, and Block Chain technology among others.

Under the Atal Innovation Mission, the Government has set up Atal Incubation Centres (AIC) to incubate startups in various sectors.

It has also launched Atal New India Challenge (ANIC) program to directly aid startups with technology-based innovations that solve sectoral challenges of national importance and societal relevance.

A total of 26 Centres of Excellence (CoEs) in diverse areas of national interest for driving self-sufficiency and creating capabilities to capture new and emerging technology areas have been launched with the participation of the Central Government, Software Technology Parks of India (STPI), State Government(s), industry partnership and venture capital firms.

Further, the Technology Incubation and Development of Entrepreneurs (TIDE) Scheme, launched by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology takes a multi-pronged approach with the focus on institutions of higher learning to strengthen their technology incubation centers and enable young entrepreneurs to initiate technology startup companies for commercial exploitation of technologies developed by them.