Number of recognised startups in India rises to 65,861, says govt

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Sustained efforts by the government have resulted in increasing the number of recognised startups from 726 in 2016-17 to 65,861 as on March 14 this fiscal, the Parliament was informed on Friday.

The government had launched 'Startup India' initiative on January 16, 2016, with an aim to build a stronger ecosystem for nurturing the startup culture that would further drive economic growth, support entrepreneurship, and enable large-scale employment opportunities.

"Sustained government efforts in this direction have resulted in increasing the number of recognised startups from 726 in FY 2016-17 to 65,861 in FY 2021-22 (as on 14th March 2022)," Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha.

He said that the recognised startups are spread across over 640 districts and have reported a creation of more than seven lakh jobs with an average of 11 jobs being created by them.

The recognised startups, he said, are spread across 56 diversified sectors such as IT services, finance technology, technology hardware, enterprise software, artificial intelligence, and nanotechnology.

Replying to an another question, Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Som Parkash said that as on February 28 this year, the ministry has allocated Rs 2,791.29 crore to SIDBI, which in turn committed Rs 6,795 crore to 82 Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs), while Rs 8,785 crore have been invested by supported AIFs in 574 startups.

"The Startup India Seed Fund Scheme (SISFS) aims to provide financial assistance to startups for proof of concept, prototype development, product trials, market entry and commercialization...Rs 945 crore has been allocated under the scheme for a period of four years starting from 2021-22," he added.