Parul
The Centre has allocated Rs 611 crore to 165 incubators under Startup India Seed Fund Scheme, a flagship initiative of the government of India, intended to catalyse startup culture and build a strong and inclusive ecosystem for innovation and entrepreneurship in the country, a senior official said.
Manmeet Nanda, Joint Secretary, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) said that the government started Startup India Seed Fund in April 2021, with a corpus of Rs. 945 crore over four years of 2021-2025.
“The result that we see today, two years into the startup India seed fund scheme, with 165 incubators on-boarded, who had then gone on to give funds to about 1,000-plus startups, covering the entire length and breadth of our country.
Sixty-five per cent of these startups are from Tier-II and Tier-III cities, many of them being women-led, which is very encouraging,” Manmeet Nanda said during a press conference on Tuesday evening in New Delhi. The states where the startups come from are Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat.
Also Read: Vivad Se Vishwas scheme aimed to provide relief to MSMEs comes into force
Nanda said startups that received funds are primarily in various sectors, however, the maximum number of these startups belong to sectors like healthcare, agriculture, education, IT services and automotive primarily electric vehicles.
Nanda said seeing the response from startups, “We can say that we will be asking more funds from the government which would be on and around 20 per cent of the Rs 945 crore”.
Nanda said that 50 per cent of these startups were led by at least one women director and around Rs 82.82 crore were approved to these women-led startups. Eleven supported startups are women-led from Northeast states, he added.
