India’s startups to be key economic growth drivers for becoming $5 trillion economy: CII

Chandigarh, August 3, 2022: In a bid to accelerate the growth in the startup ecosystem of the Northern Region, CII has constituted a Regional Committee on Startups and Entrepreneurship. Comprising 7 States of Delhi, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and 3 UTs of Chandigarh, Jammu & Kashmir, Ladakh, the Northern Region is one of the regions where the startup ecosystem has dynamically gained incredible momentum, representing 23 per cent of all startups in India.
 
India has the 3rd largest startup ecosystem in the world; expected to witness YoY growth of a consistent annual growth of 12-15%. India has about 50,000 startups in India in 2018; around 8,900 – 9,300 of these are technology led startups 1300 new tech startups were born in 2019 alone implying there are 2-3 tech startups born every day.
 
With a growing entrepreneurship culture, a supportive ecosystem, India’s startups, and small businesses are not only expected to further drive economic and business transformation but also cement its position as a key growth driver to India’s dream of becoming a $5 trillion economy.
 
Nalin Kohli, Chairman, Regional Committee on Startups and Entrepreneurship identified two factors for accelerating the growth in Startup ecosystem at the First Regional Committee meeting on Startups and Entrepreneurship. “One, enterprises are realizing the disruptive potential of start-ups and are thus, partnering/investing in them. Second, Government of India is understanding the value of working with disruptive innovators across the value chain and using their innovations to improve public service delivery”, he said.
 
Highlighting the opportunities in the Defence sector, Sanjay Jaju, Additional Secretary, Defense Production, Ministry of Defence & CEO, iDEX said that Hon’ble PM’s initiative of Make in India has given a boost to the Defence production in India, where only 30% of required equipment is imported. “Although there are multiple opportunities for startups to grow in non-kinetic spheres such as quantum cryptography, AI, drone technology, counter-drone technology, complicated communication systems, etc., but there still exists a gap in the Deeptech and Fundamental Sciences sector. Challenges for startups in the Defence sector need to be addressed where environmental fluctuations, access to capital intensive infrastructure and investor confidence needs to be instilled to encourage the startup ecosystem in Defence”, he said.

Dr Anita Gupta, Advisor & Head, Innovation & entrepreneurship, (NSTEDB), Technology Mission Division: Energy & Water, Department of Science & Technology, Government of India shared her views on importance of incubators in the growth of North India’s startup ecosystem. She said that Government’s initiatives such as Startup India have allowed student-led startups to flourish in an environment seeded by academic institutions. “Despite the slowdown during the pandemic, the number of startups has gone up. Presently, there are 12000 physical startups out of which 4000 are digitally incubated. North India alone consists of 30+ incubators and the way forward to further enrichen the startup ecosystem in the Region is to enable startups in the sectors that still remain untouched by VCs and Angels through Government support”, she added.
 
Prof Santanu Choudhury, Director, IIT Jodhpur shared his vision on strengthening the startup ecosystem in North India and said, “To build up the startup ecosystem, it is critical for startups to grow in remote places with grassroot level innovators. This will be made possible only when research resources and opportunities of innovation & entrepreneurship are provided to regular academia.” As per Prof Choudhury, the pertinent questions for the startup sector are the level of deep thought and creativity, discovering gaps, creating new markets for growth, and developing a multi-disciplinary approach that connects startups with industry connects.
 
CII nationally recognizes Start-ups as the engine of economic growth. CII has put in place a robust framework of the National, Regional & State Levels to promote Innovation and support Start-ups.  Towards this, CII had launched its 10th Centre of Excellence for Innovation, Entrepreneurship & Startups (CIES) in 2020. Government of Telangana and Pratiksha Trust are the partners to the CIES CoE. The CoE Advisory Council is chaired by Mr Kris Gopalakrishnan, Past President, CII & Co-Founder, Infosys.