Number of start-ups recognized by DPIIT goes up to Fifty Thousand

Start-up India is a flagship initiative of the Government of India launched by the Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi on 16 January 2016. The initiative is intended to catalyse start-up culture and build a strong and inclusive ecosystem for innovation and entrepreneurship in India. Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) acts as the nodal Department for the Start-up initiative. As on June 3, 2021, 50,000 start-ups across have been recognized as start-ups by DPIIT, of which 19,896 have been recognized since April 1, 2020.

With the launch of the Start-up India initiative, recognized start-ups have now spread across 623 districts. Each State and UT has at least one start-up. 30 States and UTs have announced specific Start-up Policies to support start-ups. Maharashtra, Karnataka, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat have the greatest number of start-ups.

Notably, it took only 180 days to add the last 10,000 start-ups, as compared to 808 days for the first 10,000 at the beginning of the initiative. 743 start-ups were recognized in 2016-2017, in the first year of the initiative, which has now increased exponentially to over 16,000 start-ups being recognized in the year 2020-2021.

Entrepreneurs now have options to avail benefits across a range of laws, regulations, fiscal and infrastructural support, leading to a surge in start-up ecosystem growth.

The recognized start-ups have contributed significantly to job creation, with 5,49,842 jobs reported by 48,093 start-ups with an average number of 11 employees per start-up. About 1.7 lakh jobs were created by recognized start-ups in the 2020-2021 period alone.

The sectors that had the maximum registered start-ups were ‘Food Processing’, ‘Product Development’, ‘Application Development’, ‘IT Consulting’ and ‘Business Support Services’. The leadership teams of 45% start-ups have a women entrepreneur, a trend which will inspire more women entrepreneurs to turn their ideas into start-ups.

Start-up India at DPIIT has played a pivotal role in strengthening the key pillars identified for our start-up economy. Funding opportunities to start-ups have been enhanced through the Fund of Funds Scheme with an overlay of Rs. 10,000 crore and the recently launched Start-up India Seed Fund Scheme (SISFS) with an outlay of Rs. 945 crores.

Multiple programs conceived and implemented by DPIIT - National Start-up Awards, State Ranking Framework, Global VC Summit, Prarambh: Start-up India International Summit - have provided the ecosystem an opportunity to engage with multiple partners, get recognized for their contribution and showcase the work that is being done.

DPIIT will continue to engage with multiple stakeholders to address the growth opportunities and challenges in the ecosystem, helping the Indian start-up ecosystem reach greater heights.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.