Piyush Goyal urges global VC funds to focus on start-ups from Tier 2,3 cities

Union Minister Piyush Goyal has called upon global venture capital (VC) funds to focus more on start-ups from Tier 2 and 3 cities. Goyal on Friday chaired the 4th Roundtable with global venture capital funds, organised by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT). 

Goyal has invited the VCs to explore new sectors for investing, promote and protect the intellectual property created by the young Indian entrepreneurs, provide expertise to scale-up and explore greater capital infusion including risk capital, noted the Ministry of Commerce and Industry in an official statement. 

It was pointed out in the meeting that India is home to over 61,000 recognised start-ups spread across 55 industries, with 45 per cent of them emerging from Tier 2 and 3 cities. It was also noted that 45 per cent of the start-ups have at least one women director which is a testimony of diversity, spread and inclusivity of the Indian start-up ecosystem.

It was also highlighted that specifically for the Indian start-up ecosystem, 49 regulatory reforms have been undertaken by the government to enhance ease of doing business, ease of raising capital and reduce compliance burden.

This Roundtable was held through video conference as part of the Startup India Innovation Week. Over 75 VC fund investors from across the United States, Japan, Korea, Singapore, and some global funds based in India participated in the deliberations.

These funds have a total Assets Under Management (AUM) of more than $30 billion in the Indian Region, according to the Commerce Ministry. During the meeting, number of suggestions were made by the global VC funds, which they felt could further the investors' sentiment in the sector.

The meeting was attended by Anurag Jain, Secretary, DPIIT and major Indian regulators, policymakers, along with global VC funds.

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