Prime Minister Narendra Modi on January 16, 2021 announced to launch a Rs 1,000-crore seed fund for startups, called Startup India Seed Fund. He was addressing the ‘Prarambh: Startup India International Summit’ video conferencing.
- The fund will help startups with the initial capital for growth and operations.
- The Prime Minister also launched a booklet titled ‘Evolution of Startup India’ detailing the experiences of India’s 5 year journey in startup space.
- He pointed out that 44 per cent recognized startups have women directors and number of women working in these start up is very high. Similarly, 45 per cent startups are in tier 2 and tier 3 cities, working as the brand ambassadors of the local products
- He recalled the initial challenges which were overcome to create one of the world’s biggest startup ecosystem with more than 41 thousand startups.
- Out of these startups 5700 are in IT sector, 3600 in health sectors and about 1700 are active in agriculture sector.
- Mr. Modi said that in 2014 only 4 Indian startups were in the ‘unicorn club’ now, more than 30 startups have crossed the 1 billon mark.
