On Monday Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a Startup India Seed Fund worth ₹1,000 crore for new startups in the country. As part of its startup policies, Modi said that the central government will help these startups in raising capital through guarantees going forward.
Speaking at Startup India’s international summit, Prarambh 2021, hosted by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), the Prime Minister noted that eleven startups entered the unicorn club in 2020 despite the COVID-19 pandemic, and claimed that India one of the world’s biggest startup ecosystem with more than 41,000 startups. Of these, 5,700 are in the Information and Technology sector, 3,600 in the health sector, and about 1,700 are active in the agriculture sector.
Around 8,000 startups have registered on the government Government’s e-procurement portal, GeM, and have so far done business worth ₹2,300 crore through the platform, Modi claimed. He also claimed that 44% of all recognised startups in the country have women directors, and 45% of all startups are based in tier 2 and tier 3 cities.
The Start-up India scheme was launched in January 2016, and in 2019, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal informed Lok Sabha that start-ups recognised by the DPIIT would be eligible for following incentives:
- Self-Certification under 6 labour laws and 3 environmental laws
- Relaxations in public procurement norms
- Faster exit under the Bankruptcy Code
- Rebates on patent & trademark filing fees, support from facilitators and expedited examination of Patent application
- Income Tax exemption under Section 80 IAC of Income Tax Act
- Exemption from Income Tax on investments received above fair market value
- Funding support under the Fund of Funds for startups
- Guidance and facilitation support from Startup India Hub
Byju’s, Snapdeal founders now on National Startup Advisory Council
The central government on Tuesday decided to nominate non-official members on the National Startup Advisory Council representing various stakeholders. The nominated non-official members include founders of companies such as Byju’s, YourStory, Urban Company, and Snapdeal among others. It also has members from organisations like iSpirt:
- Byju Raveendran, Byju’s
- Shradha Sharma, YourStory
- Lizzie Chapman, ZestMoney
- Abhiraj Singh, Urban Company
- Kunal Bahl, Snapdeal
- Deepak Garg, Rivigo Service
- Bhavish Aggarwal, Ola Cab
- Krishna Kumar, Cropln
- Sanjeev Bhikchandani, Info Edge India
- Sridhar Vembu, Zoho Corp
- Kris Gopalakrishnan, Axilor Ventures
- Subba Rao Pavuluri, Anath Technologies
- Mohandas Pai, Aarin Capital Partners
- Gopal Srinivasan, TVS Capital Funds Limited
- Ramesh Byrapaneni, Endiya Partners
- Prashant Prakash, Accel
- Vani Kola, Kalaari Capital
- Manoj Kohli, Softbank India
- Rajan Anandan, Sequoia Capital India
- Amitabha Bandyopadhyay SIIC, IIT Kanpur
- Kunal Upadhayaya, CIIE, IIM Ahmedabad
- Renuka Ramnath, Indian Private Equity & VentureCapital Association
- Venkatesh Shukla, The IndUS Entrepreneurs (TiE)
- Sharad Sharma, Indian Software Product Industry RoundTable (iSpirit).
- Debjani Ghosh, National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM)
- Uday Kotak, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII)
- Vineet Agarwal, Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM)
- Uday Shankar, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI)
The term of the these members will be for a period of two years or until further orders, whichever is earlier, the government said.
Also read:
- Haryana Govt Signs MoU With India Accelerator To Aid State’s Startup Ecosystem
- Defence Ministry Announces Startup Challenge To Develop Drones, AI-Based Satellite Image Analysis
- DPIIT Has ‘No Data’ On Start-Ups’ Contribution To GDP, Effect Of COVID-19 On Start-Ups
