The Minister of Commerce and Industry Shri Piyush Goyal launched the US Startup SETU – Supporting Entrepreneurs in Transformation and Upskilling programme in the Bay Area of San Francisco on September 7.
Key points of SETU
- The SETU initiative would connect start-ups in India to US-based investors and start-up ecosystem leaders with mentorship and assistance in various areas including funding, market access and commercialization.
- SETU is designed to break the geographical barriers between mentors based in US that are willing to invest in entrepreneurship and sunrise startups in India.
- The interaction will be supported through the mentorship portal under the Startup India initiative MAARG, or the Mentorship, Advisory, Assistance, Resilience, and Growth program, which is a single-stop solution finder for startups in India.
- The portal has been developed with the idea to be accessible from every corner of the country to connect with a mentor.
- A mentor will offer human intelligence in guiding the startups. It may be noted that till date, more than 200 mentors have been successfully onboarded on MAARG across the globe.
- The core functions of MAARG are to improve ease of access, use Artificial Intelligence for Matchmaking, schedule meetings virtually, host masterclasses, provide a custom dashboard for relevant information, analytics, features, etc., host cohort-based programs that will allow startup ecosystem enablers to be become a part of the program and enable outcome driven activities.
