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The government is looking to promote more than 10,000 startups in the coming five to six years under its GENESIS (Gen-Next Support for Innovative Startups) initiative, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) Secretary Alkesh Kumar Sharma said on Tuesday (August 30). 

“We are now moving to the next level where GENESIS is coming…We are going to promote 10,000 startups in the next 5-6 years,” news agency PTI quoted Sharma as saying. 

Sharma reportedly made the comments while addressing an interactive session, organised by MeitY Startup Hub (MSH), which was attended by other senior bureaucrats in the ministry.

The event was also attended by representatives of startups such as KidEx, Teralumens, iMumz, Recur Club, AyuRhytm, among others. 

Responding to a question about the purported funding winter engulfing the Indian startup ecosystem, Sharma said that funding is not an issue and that he has not seen any startup running for funds.

“Instead they (startups) are looking for growth opportunities through various means,” he said.. 

Other government officials touted the government’s various startup-friendly schemes and platforms, including Digital India GENESIS and SAMRIDH. 

Digital India GENESIS is a deeptech startup platform launched by the MeitY to scale up 10,000 tech startups over the next five years, largely from Tier-II, III cities. The selected startups will be provided with the ‘right tools’ to enable them to get off the ground and scale operations. 

The platform was launched in July this year with an outlay of more than INR 750 Cr.

On the other hand, SAMRIDH (Startup Accelerators of MeitY for Product Innovation, Development and Growth) was launched in August last year. It is a flagship programme of the central government that aims to provide support and funding to early-stage startups. 

Speaking at the event, Bhuvnesh Kumar, additional secretary in the ministry, said MeitY has already partnered with 22 accelerators under the SAMRIDH scheme. 

Under the scheme, the centre will match the contribution of venture capital (VC) funds in the selected startups. The total scheme outlay of SAMRIDH is around INR 100 Cr.

Both initiatives operate under MSH, which has 3,161 startups and 473 incubators under its wing. 

Indian startups raised $19.7 Bn in funding in the first seven months of 2022, down 8% compared to $21.26 Bn raised in the same period of previous year. 

According to the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), there are more than 73,000 startups in the country, of which 106 are unicorns.