Start-up India Seed Fund- Highlights

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has recently announced the launch of the ‘Startup India Seed Fund’. It will be a Rs 1,000-crore fund that will support startups and budding entrepreneurs.

Key Points

• This announcement was made by the prime minister at the Prarambh: Startup India International Summit.
• The summit also marked the 5th anniversary of the Startup India programme.
• The Startup India campaign was launched by PM Modi in the year 2016.
• Prarambh was hosted by DPIIT (the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade).
• PM highlighted that India is the 3rd largest startup ecosystem in the world with more than 41,000 startups.
• In 2014, India just has 4 startups in the unicorn club and now this number has increased to over 30 startups in the club.
• The government will now be helping startups in raising debt capital.
• As of now, over 8,000 startups have been registered with the Government e-Marketplace (GeM). These startups have done business worth Rs 2,300 crore out of the total business of Rs 80,000 crore that has been done through the GeM portal.

A dedicated television show named “Startup Champions” was also launched by PM Modi during the summit. The show will be telecasted on Doordarshan (DD). While addressing BIMSTEC countries in the meeting, PM said that the government is taking all necessary steps to ensure that there is no shortage of funds for startups in the country.

BIMSTEC

BIMSTEC i.e. Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) is an organization of 7 countries namely- India, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Myanmar, Thailand, and Sri Lanka.