Govt backs startups for transformative impact, says IT secy

Deep tech startups are among the fastest growing ecosystem among startups and there are currently about 32,000 such startups functioning in the country, and every year almost 2,000 are added, IT secretary S Krishnan said on Thursday while giving a special address at the Tamil Nadu Global Startup Summit in Coimbatore.

"The reason we support startups is because of their disruptive impact on the economy specifically in the deep technology space," he said. "I'm sure there would be huge opportunities. MeitY (Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology) continues to support the space specifically through the Design Link Incentive (DLI) scheme which is being revamped, which will cover semiconductor development related startups in the semiconductor chip space."

Krishnan said that the ministry runs a number of programmes to support deep tech startups and startups in the tech space. He spoke about the presence of more than 120 startup unicorns in India with a collective valuation of more than $354 billion.


He added that it was 'remarkable' that almost 50% of all the startups in India are from tier 2 and tier 3 cities, contrary to the impression that the ecosystem is only around Bengaluru or Chennai.