SAMRIDH to mentor & fund 300 startups
An investment of up to ₹4 million to the start-up, based on current valuation and growth stage, will be provided through selected accelerators:
Start-up Accelerators of MeitY for pRoduct Innovation, Development and Growth (SAMRIDH)” program aims to create a conducive platform for Indian software product start-ups to enhance their products and securing investments for scaling their business. The program is being implemented by MeitY Start-up Hub (MSH).
Ashwini Vaishnaw, Union Minister of Electronics and Information Technology, says that the initiative will not only provide the funding support to the startups but will also help in bringing skill sets together which will help them to become successful. The technology and energy of youngsters is a great potential source of energy for inclusive development. The technology can play a role in accelerating and in taking the quantum jump in reaching out to people which would have taken many years. Using the energy of startups, these areas can be reached within months.
Ajay Prakash Sawhney, Secretary, MeitY, explains that SAMRIDH scheme will pick up startups that are ready for acceleration stage and will provide them with funding support, mentorship and a lot of other support that is required by startups at this stage. The scheme heralds a very important milestone in our journey towards building confidence in our startup community.
The SAMRIDH program will focus on accelerating the 300 start-ups by providing customer connect, investor connect, and international immersion in next 3 years. Also, an investment of up to `4 million to the start-up based on current valuation and growth stage will be provided through selected accelerators. It will also facilitate equal matching i nvestment by t he accelerator / investor.
52,391 STARTUPS RECOGNIZED
Five years since the launch of the Start-Up India initiative by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a total of 52,391 entities have benefited from the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT)’s Start-Up recognition initiative, according to Som Parkash, Union Minister of State for Commerce and Industry. More than 50,000 startups have reported 5.7 lakh jobs. Start-up India is a flagship initiative of the government of India, intended to build a strong ecosystem for nurturing innovation and Start-ups in the country that will drive sustainable economic growth and generate large scale employment opportunities. The main objective of the startup ecosystem establishment is to stimulate equitable redistribution of income. Startup ecosystems are dedicatedly promoting small-scale industries in rural and urban areas. Start-ups have raised $63 billion between 2016–20 in funding.
The third-largest ecosystem in the world, India had about 50,000 startups in 2018; around 8900 - 9300 of these are technology-led startups whereas, 1300 new tech startups were born in 2019 alone, implying there are 2-3 tech startups born every day. In 2020, India achieved a rare feat by joining the league of the top 50 innovative economies.
INDIA SHOWCASE PLATFORM
As per Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Start-up India Showcase is an online discovery platform for the most promising start-ups of the country. These innovations span across various cutting-edge sectors such as Fintech, entreprisetech, social impact, healthtech, edtech, among others. Ecosystem stakeholders have evaluated, nurtured, and supported these start-ups. These start-ups are solving critical problems and have shown exceptional innovation in their respective sectors.
104 start-ups from different sectors have currently on boarded on the Start-up India Showcase Platform. Each startup has a profile page with detailed pitch about their product, innovation, and USP in forms of Videos and PDF links.
Startup India Showcase is also an online networking portal which offers various social and digital connect opportunities on the platform. Each startup profile is linked with social media pages, LinkedIn URLs of founders and a direct connect button which facilitate networking opportunities between users.
The platform is powered with various tools from a powerful search to an intuitive filter which will enable seamless discovery of startups for stakeholders.
Startup India Showcase is an all-star repository as the platform contains startups who have already proved their capabilities via different means (winning competitions, selling on GeM etc), they will also be a potential priority choice for government and corporate buyers, facilitating their business growth.