PRIME Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday announced the launch of Rs 1,000-crore ‘Start-up India Seed Fund’ to support start-ups and help budding entrepreneurs pursue innovative ideas. Addressing the ‘Prarambh: Start-up India International Summit’, Modi exuded confidence that the growth of startups will help in generating jobs and improving lives of people in the region. “In order to provide initial capital for start-ups, the nation is launching a Rs 1,000 crore Start-up India Seed Fund.

 

This will help in setting up new startups and promote their growth,” the Prime Minister said. The summit marked the fifth anniversary of the Start-up India initiative launched by Modi on this day in 2016. The Government, Modi added, has been implementing the Fund of Fund Scheme to help start-ups raise equity capital. Going forward, the Government will also help start-ups in raising debt capital, he added. India, the Prime Minister said, is home to the world’s third largest start-up ecosystem which has helped several budding entrepreneurs to come up with innovative technologies and become big corporations.

 

He further said that start-ups in India are not limited to big cities and about 40 per cent of such budding entrepreneurs are coming from tier-II and tier-III cities. Modi said in 2014 there were only four start-ups in the unicorn club, but today there are more than 30. He informed that 11 start-ups entered the unicorn club in 2020 itself. India is the world’s third largest startup ecosystem. There are over 41,000 start-ups in the country.