India To Bring G20 Focus On Startups During Presidency

India to focus on digital and startups during its G20 presidency which starts this December, according to India’s Sherpa to G20 Amitabh Kant.

“India has done some phenomenal work on startups. When we started the Startup India movement, there were just about 200 odd startups. Today we have 80,000 plus startups and 106 unicorns so we are going to use this to see how the startup movement can be accelerated among G20 and the world,” the Sherpa said in an interview with LiveMint.

India’s initiative with startups, Startup 20, is among the two key initiatives the incumbent president of the G20 will be undertaking. India will hold the G20 presidency till the summit to be held in New Delhi in September 2023.

G20 is one of the largest economic forums in the world, with its members accounting for more than 80% of the world’s GDP, 75% of global trade and 60% of the world’s population.

The members of G20 have met at an annual summit since 2008, with the latest being held in Bali, Indonesia. Indonesia also happens to be the current president of G20, with its tenure ending in December.

Speaking more on Startup 20, Kant pointed out that India has taken up the role of setting the agenda for the world in terms of startups, the agenda which had traditionally been set by the developed world.

Kant highlighted the digital payments ecosystem as an example of India’s digital transformation journey. He said that India sees 7X more digital payments than the US and European Union and 3X more digital payments than China.

These figures are significant as the EU and the US have comparable populations to India when put together. China, on the other hand, also has a similar population.

With the Startup 20 programme, India seeks to show India’s digital public infrastructure and how it has helped the country in its digital transformation, Kant said. He added that India’s unique model of digital transformation can be taken to the world as well, and Startup 20 represents an opportunity to demonstrate that.

India is home to the third largest startup ecosystem in the world, behind only the US and China. Since the beginning of 2021, Indian startups have raised in excess of $64.6 Bn in funding, minting 65 unicorns to take India’s total unicorn count to 107, according to Inc42 data.

As such, over the last 22 months, India has seen an average of $2.93 Bn raised in funding and nearly three new unicorns per month.

Though the recent months have seen startup funding revert to 2020 levels, which has left several startups uncertain about the future, India’s startup ecosystem might see a recovery to 2021 levels next year.