BENGALURU: Over 98,000 recognised start-ups in the country have created more than 10.34 lakh direct jobs as on April 30, 2023. In a reply in the Lok Sabha, Union Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said there has not been a slowdown in the growth of start-ups in the country, and that the government has been implementing various initiatives under the Startup India initiative launched on January 16, 2016.
The number of recognised start-ups has increased from 428 in 2016 to 98,119 in 2023 as of April 30, 2023. The CAGR of the number of recognised start-ups during the period between 2016 and 2022 is 142%, highlighting the continued robust growth of the Indian start-up ecosystem, he said.
Under the Startup India initiative, flagship schemes like Fund of Funds for Startups (FFS), Startup India Seed Fund Scheme (SISFS) and Credit Guarantee Scheme for Startups (CGSS) support start-ups at various stages of their business cycle to enable them to graduate to a level where they are able to raise funds from angel investors or venture capitalists or seek loans from commercial banks or financial institutions.
India has added over 1,000 start-ups in the last 12 months.“These start-ups play a pivotal role in job creation, not only through direct employment within their organisations but also by catalysing job growth in related sectors like e-commerce, fintech, edtech, healthtech, and more. Start-ups contribute to the emergence of gig economy jobs,” Aditya Narayan Mishra, MD & CEO at CIEL HR Services.
The government has established FFS with a corpus of Rs 10,000 crore to meet the funding needs of start-ups. Goyal told Lok Sabha that the government implements annual exercises and programs including States’ Start-up Ranking, National Startup Awards and Innovation Week which play an important role in the holistic development of the start-up ecosystem.