India rapidly transforming into third-best startup ecosystem globally with 135 unicorns: Amitabh Kant

16 Aug 2024 Evaluate

Expressing optimism over India’s startup ecosystem, Amitabh Kant, former CEO of NITI Aayog and G20 Sherpa has highlighted the country’s rapid transformation into the third-best startup ecosystem globally, with 135 unicorns and over 1.4 lakh startups. Kant said ‘We started with 356 startups. Today we have 1,40,000 startups. We have about 135 unicorns. We’ve created the third-best ecosystem in the world. The startup ecosystem would get a huge impetus from the abolition of the angel tax, which is now being done.’

Kant praised the removal of the Angel Tax in this year’s budget, which will benefit startups. He also stressed the importance of creating global champions through initiatives like the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme. In this year’s budget, the Angel Tax has been removed, which will greatly help the startups in India. Calling for a more substantial local investment to sustain the growth of the sector, he said ‘We would now require a lot of Indians, Indian pension funds, insurance companies, all to invest in our own startup. 75 per cent of the resources in our startup movement come from abroad. More and more Indians must invest in our own startup movement. That is the way forward. But we’ve done remarkably well as a startup nation.’

He also highlighted India’s ambition to become a global economic powerhouse by 2047, stressing the importance of domestic investment and the government’s push to create global champions through initiatives like the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme. On the global stage, Kant believes that India is viewed as a key driver of growth in a challenging global economic environment. Underscoring India’s robust growth rate, terming it as ‘remarkable’, he said ‘India is the fastest-growing nation. We have grown at about 8.4 per cent which is remarkable and we will accelerate the pace of our growth as we go further. We want to become the third-largest economy in the world.’


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