Google partners Odisha to groom startups, 250 ventures identified

State aims to emerge as one of the country's top three startup hubs by 2020, facilitate at least 1,000 enterprises over next five years

Internet giant Google and the Odisha government are exploring ways to collaborate for taking startups in the state to the next level.

“We are in discussion with Google for collaborations under the different programmes of the internet giant. Google Startup programme has partnership with three states- Karnataka, Goa and Telangana where they are supporting startups. We are exploring similar partnership with Google”, said a government official.

Google, under its Cloud Startup Program, will provide free credits to early stage companies so that the start-ups can focus on building a business and let Google take the responsibility of scaling and securing their infrastructure. The start-ups have to meet certain criteria, he added.

The state government has recognised about 250 startups which may partner with Google for mentoring.

On an average, we are awarding recognition to 20 new start-ups under the Start-Up Odisha initiative. Out of the total startups recognized by the state government, 50 are in the tech domain, he added.

It may be noted that Odisha aims to emerge as one of the country's top three startup hubs by 2020, and to facilitate at least 1,000 start-ups over the next five years.

The state is also planning to start the second leg of the startup Odisha Yatra in October. In the first phase about 50 institutions were covered in the 15 out of the 30 districts in the state. Plans are afoot to cover the balance in October to promote grass root level innovations.

For facilitating ease of doing business to the fledgeling companies, Odisha has a relaxed criterion for startups on the lines notified by Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion.

Whereas earlier an entity to be declared as ‘startup’ was required to have incorporation and registration not prior to five years, now it has been relaxed to seven years in general and 10 years in case of biotechnology startups.