Union Minister of Commerce & Industry, Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution and Textiles, Piyush Goyal, called upon the global venture capital (VC) funds on Friday to focus more on startups from Tier II and III cities.
Chairing a roundtable with global venture capital (VC) funds organised by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Ministry of Commerce and Industry, he invited the VCs to explore new sectors for investing, promoting, and protecting the intellectual property created by the young Indian entrepreneurs, provide expertise to scale-up, and explore greater capital infusion including risk capital.
“The government has already taken a number of steps to support the startups and would do so in the future also,” he added.
India is home to over 61,000 recognised startups spread across 55 industries, with 45 percent of them emerging from Tier II and III cities and 45 percent of startups having at least one woman director, a testimony of diversity, spread and inclusivity of the Indian startup ecosystem.
It was also highlighted that specifically for 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 virtual roundtable was part of the Startup India Innovation Week. Over 75 VC fund investors from across the United States, Japan, Korea, Singapore, and India participated in the deliberations.
“These funds have a total Assets Under Management (AUM) of more than $30 billion in the Indian Region,” the union minister said.
A number of suggestions were made by the global VC funds, which they felt could further the investors’ sentiment in the sector.
The roundtable intended to share a progress report of the current startup-VC ecosystem, insights on impact investing, India’s global outlook and the opportunities and interventions for the way ahead of VC investments in India.
The meeting was attended by Shri Anurag Jain, Secretary, DPIIT, and major Indian regulators, policymakers, along with Global VC Funds.
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