PM to interact with start-ups, to brainstorm funding, market access

New Delhi, Jan 9: With India emerging as a global innovation hub, home to world’s third-largest startup ecosystem with more than 61,000 startups as on date, the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) has mounted a major exercise to showcase the spread and depth of entrepreneurship across India.
The first-ever ‘Startup India Innovation Week’, being organized by the DPIIT from 10-16 January, 2022, is a virtual week-long program to commemorate the 75th year of India’s independence and will bring together key startups, entrepreneurs, investors, incubators, funding entities, banks, policymakers and other national/international participants to exchange knowledge on nurturing startup ecosystems.
The convergence of stakeholders is also aimed at mobilising global and domestic capital for startup investments, providing market access opportunities to startups and demonstrating high-quality, high-technology, and frugal innovations from India.
The Innovation Week which will be launched on 10 January, 2022, by Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal, comes just after the end of 2021 which has been recognised as the ‘Year of Unicorns,’ with more than 40 Unicorns being added in 2021. India’s startups representing 55 industries, spread across 633 districts with at least one startup from every state and union territory of the country, these have created over six lakh jobs since 2016. Meanwhile 45% of the startups are from tier-2 and tier-3 cities with potential to accelerate India’s integration into global value chains and create global impact.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s interaction with startups on 15 January will be a key highlight of the event which he will address at 10.30 am via video conferencing. For this interaction, more than 150 startups have been divided into six working groups based on themes such as ‘Growing from Roots, nudging the DNA, from local to global, technology of future, building champions in manufacturing and sustainable development’. The interaction is an effort to understand how startups can contribute to the national needs by driving innovation in the country and how government can assist them with the same.
This day will also include the announcement of winners of National Startup Awards 2021 to recognize outstanding startups and ecosystem enablers that are building scalable enterprises with high potential of employment generation, wealth creation, social impact and will be attended by the Minister of Commerce and Industry The Innovation Week will also feature a roundtable with global investors and domestic funds, launch of open network for digital commerce digital strategy as well as pitching sessions and corporate connect programs for startups from across the country. A global venture capital roundtable will be held and chaired by Goyal on 13 January which will cover sessions on Indian incubator landscape and incubator capacity building, startup pitching and several workshops on funding avenues, financing support by banks, government market access. A knowledge sharing session on best practices by 5 states in market access incubation, and funding will also be conducted.
Another highlight is the launch of the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) digital strategy on 14 January with a panel discussion on women entrepreneurship, startup pitching sessions, workshop on expansion strategies and fireside chats highlighting global market entry strategies and technology commercialization.
The last day of the week-long celebration will include corporate connect for startups, panel discussions on the ONDC’s Made in India approach to drive inclusion, innovation and scale in public digital infrastructure and urban innovation via collaboration between startups and Smart Cities Mission.