Focus on tier 2, 3 cities: DPIIT Secretary to startups

The government has taken several steps to strengthen the startup ecosystem and startups should focus on tier 2 and 3 cities, which holds huge business opportunities, DPIIT Secretary Anurag Jain said on Thursday. Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) Secretary also called upon startups to look for sustainable solutions for the problems being faced by the society at large.

"We should not forget the rural markets, tier 2 and 3 cities. Rural market will grow very fast... In our solutions, we should always remember whether my solution is sustainable or not," Jain said at CII's Global Unicorn Summit - "Nurturing 1000 Unicorns by 2030."

He added that India's startup ecosystem is the third largest in the world and the country is second highest in adding the number of unicorns.


"Now we are adding 80 startups everyday and that pace is the highest in the world... We can hope to become the largest startup ecosystem in the world in the times to come... More than half of the startups come from tier 2-3 cities," he added.