Invest in startups from tier 2, 3 cities, Piyush Goyal asks global VC funds

Chairing the fourth roundtable with global venture capital funds, organised by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), the minister invited the funds to explore new sectors for investing, promote and protect the intellectual property created by the young Indian entrepreneurs, provide expertise to scale-up and explore greater capital infusion including risk capital, said a statement from the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.

The roundtable was held through video conference as part of the Startup India Innovation Week. Over 75 VC fund investors from across the US, Japan, Korea, Singapore, and some global funds domiciled in India participated in the deliberation. These funds have a total asset under management (AUM) of more than $30 billion in India. A number of suggestions were made by the funds to boost the investors’ sentiment in the sector.

The minister added that the government has already taken a number of steps to support the startups and would continue to come up with more steps going ahead. During the meeting, it was noted in a bid to support the startup ecosystem, 49 regulatory reforms have been undertaken by the government to enhance ease of doing business, ease of raising capital and reduce compliance burden.

The official statement said that the intent of this roundtable was to share a progress report of the current Indian startup-VC ecosystem, insights on impact investing, India’s global outlook and the opportunities and interventions for the way ahead of VC investments in the country.

The meeting covered topics like ‘building for the world from India’, Digital India outlook, regulatory updates for global and domestic funds, opportunities in India, ‘Vision for India at 2047’ among others. The session also covered major regulatory issues which need to be addressed with the Centre.

The meeting was also attended by Anurag Jain, Secretary, DPIIT, major Indian regulators and policymakers.

According to the ministry, India has over 61,000 recognised startups spread across 55 industries, with 45% of them emerging from tier-2 and tier-3 cities and 45% of startups having at least one woman director.

Speaking at the inaugural ceremony of the Startup India Innovation Week earlier this week, the minister had called on the startup fraternity should nurture 75 more unicorns in 2022.