Hon’ble Minister for Commerce and Industry, Shri Suresh Prabhu launched the States’ Startup Ranking 2018 at an event organised today at the Pravasi Bhartiya Kendra, New Delhi. The event was attended by Hon’ble Minister of State for Commerce and Industry, Shri C. R. Chaudhary, delegates from 19 States across the country, many Venture Capitalists, angel investors and Startups.

The States Startup Ranking framework launched by Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion is an exercise aimed at ranking States for establishing a robust ecosystem for supporting Startups. The framework will evaluate States on parameters such as Startup policy and implementation, incubation support, seed funding support, angel and venture funding support, simplified regulations, easing public procurement, awareness and outreach.

A compendium of good practices for strengthening Startup ecosystem was also released. The handbook identifies 95 good practices implemented by Central and various State Governments.

Speaking on the occasion, Shri Suresh Prabhu said, “I am confident that the ranking framework would promote healthy competition among the States and enable them to further learn, share and adopt best practices across the seven identified key parameters. I am sure the exercise would generate collaboration amongst all the stakeholders to turn the Hon’ble Prime Minister’s vision to have Startups in every district and every block a reality”.

Shri C. R. Chaudhary Hon’ble Minister of State for Commerce and Industry said, “This compendium of good practices will foster learning and healthy entrepreneurship spirit in all the States and facilitate all policy makers in formulation of policies and scheme for overall development of Startup ecosystem in the country.”

Shri Ramesh Abhishek, Secretary, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, mentioned that, “The key objective of the Startup states ranking framework is to encourage States to take proactive steps towards strengthening the enabling Startup ecosystems at the State level. Selection of the right parameters to effectively cover all aspects was one of the major challenges faced while developing the framework. Benchmarking studies and extensive stakeholder feedback have helped us arrive at a well-balanced framework. Our aim is not only to measure the extensive efforts made at the State level towards building a strong Startup ecosystem, but also to enable an environment of constant learning through dissemination of good practices.”

State Startup Ranking framework promotes competitive strengthening of state startup ecosystems through evaluation and dissemination of good practices. Launch of a national State Startup Ranking framework to evaluate and incentivise state efforts in building startup ecosystems by assessing criteria such as startup policy implementation, incubation support, seed and venture funding, regulatory simplification, public procurement facilitation, and outreach; accompanied by a compendium of 95 good practices to disseminate replicable measures and promote stakeholder collaboration for policy formulation and proactive state-level ecosystem strengthening.