Delhi trounces Bengaluru to become India's startup capital: Economic Survey

India’s national capital Delhi has replaced India’s information technology capital Bengaluru as the new startup capital for the country said the Economic Survey tabled by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the Lok Sabha on Monday.

New Delhi: India’s national capital Delhi has replaced India’s information technology capital Bengaluru as the new startup capital for the country, said the Economic Survey tabled by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the Lok Sabha on Monday.

The survey authored by Principal Economic Advisor Sanjeev Sanyal has detailed information about the DPIIT recognized startups, details of Unicorns (startups having achieved the valuation of over $1billion), recent trends, and the role of startups in generating employment in the country.

“Over the recent years, Delhi has replaced Bengaluru as the startup capital of India. Over 5,000 recognized startups were added in Delhi while 4,514 startups were added in Bangalore between April 2019 to December 2021,” said the Survey.

The data showed that one of India’s most prosperous and industrialized states, Maharashtra, has the highest number of recognized startups in the country with a total of 11,308 startups.

Third highest number of startups in the world

According to the Survey, startups in India have grown remarkably over the last six years. The number of new recognized startups has increased to over 14,000 in 2021-22 as against just 733 new recognized startups in 2016-17.

Most of the startups belong to the services sector as they are active in emerging sectors of the economy such as fintech, edutech, and health tech sectors in addition to the information technology sector.

In order to promote innovation and foster growth, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had launched the Startup India scheme in January 2016 and several concessions were announced for the sector in the FY 2016-17 budget.

As a result, more than 61,400 startups have been recognized in the country as of January 10, 2022.

Citing the official data, the Survey said in 2021, 555 districts in the country had at least one new startup. On the other hand, only 121 districts had at least 1 new startup in 2016-17.

And this is not just the sheer number of startups or new startups, Indian startups are scaling new heights globally.

India had a record number of startups (44) reach unicorn status in 2021. The country overtook the UK to emerge as the third highest country in a number of unicorns after the US and China which added 487 and 301 unicorns respectively in 2021.

“As of January 14, 2022, India has 83 unicorns with a total valuation of US$ 277.77 billion,” said the survey.

Space sector new frontier for startups

According to the Survey, trends in the number of start-ups engaged in the space sector also show the pace of growth of the space sector in India as just in the last three years the number of startups in the space sector has increased from 11 in 2019 to 47 in 2021.

“With the recently undertaken policy initiatives and private sector participation, the Indian space sector is expected to capture a larger share of the global space economy, which was close to $447 billion in 2020. At present, India accounts for only about 2 percent of the space economy, much behind the major players – the US and China,” said the Survey.