The Prime Minister is launching a startup promotion initiative in Delhi today at the presence of world’s renowned startup entrepreneurs and fund managers. India is a fine geography for the rise of startups as the country is having the largest number of young people besides being in the mainstream of the IT revolution.
India is having a vibrant startup sector with third largest number of startup registrations according to the global monitoring agency Compass. Similarly, Bangalore is one of the fastest growing startup locations. Though several startups were launched in India over the last five years, analysts point out that a global size entity like facebook , Amazon or Alibaba is yet to rise from the country.
Expectations about the PM’s proposed start up promotion programme are that he may declare policy incentives, regulatory easing measures and tax incentives for the startup sector.
Some of the issues like fund raising and tax treatment of startup investment may be settled and a direction may be made by the PM. In the last budget, Prime Minister has offered an initiative for comprehensive promotion of the startup sector; but not much follow up action were made.
Today’s meeting is also attended by Uber’s Travis Kalanick and the Softbank’s Masayoshi Son. Softbank has provided seed money for Alibaba and still holds nearly one fourth of the shares of the Chinese titan. The Softbank is led by Indian origin CEO- Nikesh Arora.
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