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Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday (June 22) said that the country’s digital economy is well poised to grow to $1 Tn by 2025.

Addressing the opening ceremony of the BRICS Business Forum virtually, PM Modi said that technology-led growth is one of the important pillars of India’s economic recovery from the pandemic. 

He further added that the Union government has introduced a slew of innovation-friendly policies for sectors such as spacetech, clean energy, drones, among others.

BRICS is a multinational forum comprising five major emerging economies – Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.

“India has one of the best ecosystems in the world for innovation, which is visible in the number of startups that have emerged out of the country. We have 70,000 startups and more than 100 unicorns and the number is continuously rising,” Modi said.

He also said that the country is expecting 7.5% growth rate this year which would make India the fastest-growing major economy of the world.

The prime minister’s words come on the back of rapid digitisation and increasing internet penetration in the country. India’s consumer digital economy, which stood at $85-90 Bn in 2020, is slated to grow nearly 10X to $800 Bn by 2030 at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 25%.

The Covid-19 pandemic also gave a boost to the digital ecosystem in the country and led to higher digital adoption. It also increased the number of digital startups and spurred digital-first products that have come to dominate the lives of many in the post-pandemic world. It also led to many businesses adopting new technological offerings and a big boom in the Indian software-as-a-service (SaaS) segment. 

Recently, PM Modi also lauded the Indian startup ecosystem saying that the world of homegrown startups reflected the spirit of new India. He had previously also called startups the backbone of the country’s development.

There have been whispers of a funding winter in the Indian startup ecosystem, with funding raised by Indian startups declining to $1.76 Bn during January-March 2022 from $3.2 Bn in Q4 2021. The new-age tech companies have also fired more than 10,000 employees in 2022. 

Despite this, India got its 103rd unicorn on Tuesday (June 21), with SaaS startup LeadSquared raising $153 Mn at a valuation of over $1 Bn.