India will have startups in every district by 2025: DPIIT

NEW DELHI: The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) has announced its ambitious vision to establish startups in every district of the country by the end of 2025. Over the past nine years, the number of startups in India has surged from just 400 in 2014 to over 157,000 today.

Addressing a press briefing Amandeep Singh Bhatia, Secretary, DPIIT highlighted the success of the Startup India Initiative, launched on January 16, 2016. “The programme has been pivotal in supporting entrepreneurs, building a robust startup ecosystem, and transforming India into a nation of job creators instead of job seekers”, he said.

DPIIT Joint Secretary Sanjiv shared, “Our focus is to ensure a thriving startup ecosystem in every district of India by 2025. Currently, 48 per cent of startups are emerging from tier-2 and tier-3 cities, indicating that entrepreneurship is no longer confined to metropolitan hubs.”

Shri Amardeep Singh Bhatia, secretary, DPIIT, addressed a brainstorming session with Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs) as part of Startup India Innovation Week 2025.

This session focused on exploring innovative financing mechanisms like venture debt, green financing, and… pic.twitter.com/eFjtOqFmPy

— Startup India (@startupindia) January 11, 2025

Sanjiv said that in 2016, startups existed in only 120 districts. This has expanded to over 750 districts today, with aspirations to cover all districts by 2025. The number of unicorns has grown from 8 in 2016 to 118 in 2024. Unicorns are basically startups worth at least a billion dollars and not yet listed on a public exchange. Startup funding has risen from $8 billion in 2016 to more than $155 billion today. The ecosystem has generated over 1.7 million jobs.

The secretary highlighted that the government launched 3 key schemes to strengthen the startup ecosystem. To support the startup ecosystem, the government has launched several initiatives. a Fund of Funds for Startups was established and 144 Alternative Investment Funds (AIF) with a corpus of Rs 80,000 crores to provide financial support to startups.

Startup India Seed Fund Scheme provided early-stage funding to startups through incubators, acting as a model for nurturing innovation and enabled startups to access loans from banks by offering credit guarantees, easing financial hurdles.

Bhatia highlighted that the 2016 Startup India Action Plan introduced measures such as tax exemptions and regulatory relaxations to ease the burden on startups. The Government Procurement System prioritizes purchases from startups, fostering business opportunities.

The government has also emphasized supporting deep-tech startups through targeted funding. Bhatia mentioned that as the ecosystem completes a decade, efforts will focus on collaborating with companies to develop innovative products and explore greater integration with international markets.

With these efforts, it is expected that India is poised to solidify its position as one of the world’s leading startup ecosystems, fostering innovation and creating new opportunities nationwide. The DPIIT released figures of Startup performance in India as a curtain raiser to celebrate National Startup Day on January 16.

The government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with the objective of building a strong ecosystem for nurturing innovation, and start-ups and encouraging investments in the start-up ecosystem of the country, launched the Startup India initiative on January 16, 2016. (ANI)