Will have 1 mn startups in the next 10 years: MoS IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar

Chandrasekhar along with other senior ministers from the government were marking and celebrating National Startup Day

The Indian startup ecosystem, the third largest in the world, is poised to add 10 lakh startups and 10,000 unicorns in the coming decade, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Union Minister of State for Electronics and IT, Skill Development and Entrepreneurship and Jal Shakti said on Tuesday.

At present, there are 1 lakh startups and 110 unicorns in the country.

“Today is National Startup Day, and there has been a deep, decisive transformation — we have reached a point wherein, from fewer startups in 2014, we have more than 1 lakh startups and 112 unicorns,” Chandrasekhar said.

 “Today, no young Indian needs to have a famous last name — and with creativity and hard work, we have ensured such a vibrant and expansive startup ecosystem. Our vision is that in the coming 10 years, we will have 10 lakh startups, and we will create 10,000 unicorns,” the minister added.

Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal said that startups are playing a pivotal role in India's journey towards becoming a developed nation by 2047.

“The diverse sectors in which startups are making substantial contributions include MedTech, FinTech, AgroTech to the aviation sector, drones, and simulators,” he said at the startup state ranking awards.

Goyal explained that tourism as a sector has untapped potential, and encouraged startups to explore innovative ideas around sustainable tourism.

He urged startups to focus on new areas such as artificial intelligence (AI) and come up with ideas that make life easier and revolutionise existing ways of working.

The minister also encouraged startups to register for patent, copyright, and trademark protections as the fees have been reduced for startups, an official statement from the industry department said.

Meanwhile, Chandrasekhar added that the next wave of innovation in India's startup space will come from deep-tech sectors like web3, artificial intelligence (AI), and semiconductors.

India currently has 117,254 DPIIT-registered startups across more than 670 cities, 50 per cent of which are from tier 2 and 3 cities. These startups have cumulatively created 1,242,072 jobs, Goyal revealed in a post on X.

As many as 55,816 of the country’s startups have women directors and 48 per cent of them have at least one woman director.

Minister of Education Dharmendra Pradhan, in a post on X, said that in its eight-year run, the Startup India initiative has “fuelled dreams, catalysed opportunities, and transformed India into a global start-up hub.”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Startup India initiative on January 16, 2016, to create a robust environment to foster innovation, support startups, and stimulate investments in the country’s startup sector. In 2022, PM Modi officially designated January 16 as National Startup Day.  

DPIIT has, so far, given 2,977 income tax exemptions to startups, while 3,686 fledgling firms have been funded under the SIDBI Fund of Funds scheme – established in 2016 with a corpus of Rs 10,000 crore, according to the Startup India website.

DPIIT also created Startup India Seed Fund Scheme (SISFS) with an outlay of Rs 945 crore to provide financial assistance to startups for Proof of Concept, prototype development, product trials, market-entry, and commercialisation.