Karnataka To Fund 101 Startups Under ELEVATE 2024

The department of electronics, information technology and biotechnology (IT & BT) of Karnataka has shortlisted 101 startups under its ELEVATE 2024 programme for funding.

In a post on LinkedIn, Karnataka’s IT & BT minister Priyank Kharge said that the department has allocated INR 25 Cr as grant-in-aid to nurture and support the selected startups.

“After rigorous evaluation of 960 applicants, 101 exceptional startups have been selected to receive support under our flagship ELEVATE 2024 programme,” said Kharge in the post.

As part of the initiative, the selected startups will receive mentoring and networking opportunities which would help them access relevant resources to scale, compete globally and create jobs in the state.

Among the shortlisted startups, 42% are women-led ventures, while 36% are from emerging tech hubs beyond Bengaluru, the minister said. Overall, the selected startups are from 14 districts of the state. Meanwhile, 17 selected startups are working on bridging the urban-rural technology divide, the minister added.

The ELEVATE programme was launched in 2015 by Karnataka to nurture and support innovative startups in the state. As part of the programme, early-stage startups are given a one time grant of up to INR 50 Lakh to develop their prototypes and make their products market ready.

Only early-stage startups incorporated in Karnataka who have not crossed 10 years since their inception and have a top line of less than INR 100 Cr are eligible to apply under the scheme. The startups are evaluated on how innovative their idea is and what kind of socio economic impact they can create in the state, such as boosting employment.

In the 2023 edition, 817 startups registered under the ELEVATE scheme.

The programme is among the many steps taken by the Karnataka government to make the state a hub of innovation and entrepreneurship. Last week, the state government’s budget for 2025-26 unveiled a number of new measures to boost the startup ecosystem.

The government announced INR 300 Cr fund of funds and a separate corpus of INR 100 Cr to support deeptech startups in Karnataka. The announcement was made under the government’s Local Economy Accelerator Programme (LEAP), launched with a grant of INR 1,000 Cr to create jobs in Tier II & III cities.

Additionally, the government also plans to set up a Centre for Applied AI for Tech Solutions (CATS) by investing INR 50 Cr in the next five years.

To give a push to EV adoption in the state, the Karnataka Clean Mobility Policy 2025-30 was unveiled, which aims to attract INR 50,000 Cr investment from the clean mobility value chain. The state also plans to build a testing track and state-of-the-art EV cluster with common infrastructure to boost EV manufacturing in the Bengaluru zone with an investment of INR 25 Cr.