21 Indian startups raise nearly $187 million this week
The Indian startup ecosystem raised around $187 million in funding this week, that included four growth-stage and 13 early-stage deals.
Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal today called upon entrepreneurs to think of building Startups that focus on ”healthifying” people at a time when the world is facing successive waves of the Covid-19 pandemic.
He also asked the stakeholders in the innovation ecosystem to strive to take India to the top 25 in the Global Innovation Index.
”Our Startups are the key reason behind India’s meteoric rise in Global Innovation Index from 76 in 2014 to 46 in 2021,” he said while inaugurating ṭhe “Startup India Innovation Week Launch” virtually from New Delhi.
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Goyal spoke on the need for institutionalising the Startup Week Celebrations as an annual event so that the startup ecosystem was regularly reviewed, reinvented, rejuvenated and reenergised.
This virtual week-long innovation celebration aims to commemorate the 75th year of India’s independence ‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav’ and is designed to showcase the spread and depth of entrepreneurship across India.
The startup and innovation festival’s primary goal is to bring together the country’s key startups, entrepreneurs, investors, incubators, funding entities, banks, policymakers, and other national and international stakeholders to celebrate entrepreneurship and promote innovation.
Terming the startups as the harbingers of change, Goyal said; ”Our startups have changed the mindset from “Can do” to “Will do”. Startup India, which started as a mission to promote Innovation has today become a revolution of National Participation and National Consciousness.’
He outlined 3 goals for Indian entrepreneurs, ‘Make in India’, ‘Innovate in India’, and ‘Mentor the next generation of entrepreneurs’. He also said that there was a need to make the startups much more resilient so that they were well prepared to mitigate and overcome crisis situations like the pandemic.
The Minister observed that our young entrepreneurs were eager to make an extreme impact and are fearless risk-takers.
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