Indian Startups

New reforms, policy assistance, and support mechanisms for establishing a focused approach in solving unmet financial needs through technology will significantly benefit the economy, they stressed.

The report titled  “Indian Tech Start-up Ecosystem: Year of The Titans” hailed the Indian startups saying that it raised over USD 24.1 billion in 2021. 2021 saw startups securing thrice the number of valuable deals (counted as above USD 100 million) than it did in 2020. This is a testimony of investor confidence which boasted of over 2400 angel investors and the increasing appetite to take financial risks.

The Indian tech startup base continues to witness steady growth, adding over 2250 startups in 2021, which is 600 more than 2020. India, accounting for 70 unicorns, added a record number of new unicorns (42) in 2021 across 18 sectors, third highest after the US and China, with a cumulative valuation of newly-added unicorns standing around $90 billion.

In a virtual meeting with over 160 leading startups on Saturday, Modi said that like small businesses, which are the spine of India's economy, startups are turning out to be the game changers.

A total of 2,177 applications were received from Startups across the 49 sub-sectors along with applications from 53 incubators and 6 accelerators for the ecosystem enablers categories.

Founded in 2014, Evage in India is supplying EV trucks to major delivery fleets such as Amazon India's Delivery Service Partner. The seed-round funding will help the mobility tech startup complete its production-ready factory outside of Delhi in FY2022-23 and scale up production, said the startup.

The Rocketbox (now Rocketbox by Shiprocket) founders will join the Shiprocket leadership team and continue to build the cargo product as part of this deal, the company said in a statement. "Rocketbox has a cutting-edge platform which extends Shiprocket's capabilities to B2B use-cases as well as bulk movement using cargo carriers. The platform brings along a host of features which will help retailers save time, cost, and effort, allowing a smooth end-to-end logistics experience," said Saahil Goel, Co-Founder and CEO of Shiprocket.

In her last budget, the finance minister announced extension of tax holidays for startups along with exemption of capital gains for investment till March 31, 2022. Access to credit and tax incentives are areas that would be looked into. "We will further focus on startups and unicorns. Expect more policy measures in the budget," an insider told India Narrative.

The two startups supported by the Department of Biotechnology's Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (DBT-BIRAC) are NIRAMAI Health Analytix Pvt. Ltd. and Inn Accel Technologies Pvt. Ltd. As per a statement by the World Bank, this year the Awards attracted more than 70 companies from 35 countries, which submitted their innovative products and services under three categories: reproductive health and pregnancy, general women's and adolescent health, and women safety and security.

The facility aims to provide clean drinking water at a price much lesser than the market price. Speaking on the occasion, the Minister said, the Artificial Intelligence (AI) driven start-up initiative should be motivating for the other startups as well. An MoU was also signed between the Technology Development Board (TDB), a statutory body of Department of Science & Technology and Swajal Water Private Limited, a tech start up company founded by ex-IITians based in Gurugram.