Secretary, DPIIT urges National Startup Awardees to adopt one district individually and contribute to its holistic development

Holistic Ecosystem support is the key for Startups success in India, says Shri Anurag Jain asking the pioneers to handhold Next Gen Startups in their growth journey

Secretary, DPIIT, Shri Anurag Jain has urged the National Startup Awardees to adopt one district individually and contribute to its holistic development. Delivering the keynote address during the launch of Handholding Support of National Startup Award 2021, Shri Jain urged all stakeholders, winners, and finalists of the Awards to stay connected to the roots and contribute back to the society and the Nation. Stating that a Holistic Ecosystem support is the key for Startups success in India, he asked the pioneers to handhold Next Gen Startups in their growth journey.

The Results of the National Startup Awards 2021 were released by Shri Piyush Goyal, Minister of Commerce & Industry, Textiles, Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution on 15^th January 2022 virtually.

A total of 2177 applications were received from Startups across the 49 sub-sectors along with applications from 53 incubators and 6 accelerators for the ecosystem enablers categories. A total of 46 Startups across sectors and special categories along with one incubator and one accelerator were recognized as the winners of National Startup Awards 2021.

Reflecting past efforts, this year for the second edition of National Startup Awards, DPIIT has put together 7 tracks that are more inclusive and exhaustive. The 7 pillars are:

1.  Investor Connect: The pillar would focus on facilitating funding and investor connects.

2. Mentorship: Under this pillar, curated mentorship programs for startups will be organised. The pillar would contain one-to-one mentorship sessions, masterclasses & classroom sessions.

3. Government Connect: The pillar would focus on enhancing Government procurement for startups. Startup will be provided with an opportunity to present their innovations to various ministries under “Startups for Public Service Workshop”.

4. Unicorn Engagement: This is a new pillar which has been introduced for this year cohort. Under this pillar Startups will get a chance to work closely with Unicorns. Exercises such as transformational workshops, pitch-to-unicorns and strategic alliances will be conducted.

5. Capacity Development and Startup India Benefits: This pillar would contain sensitization workshops on Startup India benefits and regulatory masterclasses to improve the regulatory environment.

6. Market Access: Under the Market Access pillar, startups will get a chance to work with various industry enablers and Indian missions abroad to scale up their startups.

7. Brand Showcase: This pillar would help Startups in building their brands by conducting workshops on storytelling & marketing. This pillar would also help build visibility of startups through blogs and social media channels and focused episodes will cover winners of National Startup Awards 2021 on 'Doordarshan Startup Champions 2.0' (A TV show being telecasted  in both Hindi and English across Doordarshan network channels).

Today’s launch programme was attended by several C – Suite industry and ecosystem enablers, startup unicorns, senior Government officials from SIDBI, GeM, Doordarshan, international missions such as JETRO, Embassy of Japan among others, who offered exclusive offerings to support the National Startup Awardees. Additionally, winners and finalists of National Startup Awards 2021 joined the launch programme virtually to understand the engagement plan prepared for them in the way ahead.

The launch of the handholding support was highly appreciated by the cohort of the National Startup Awardees 2021.

Holistic ecosystem support urges awardees to adopt districts and mentor startups under seven targeted engagement pillars. Secretary, DPIIT urged National Startup Awardees to adopt one district each to provide mentoring and handholding support, and announced a structured Handholding Support programme for awardees organised around seven pillars: Investor Connect, Mentorship, Government Connect, Unicorn Engagement, Capacity Development and Startup India Benefits, Market Access, and Brand Showcase, intended to translate award recognition into practical ecosystem development and scaling opportunities.