Piyush Goyal sets target of 75 unicorns in run-up to 75th year of Independence

“We have added 43 unicorns in 45 weeks, since the start of ‘Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav’ on 12 March, 2021,” Goyal said, releasing the NASSCOM Tech Start-up Report 2022 and urged startups to build solutions for local and global markets, AI, IoT, big data, data analytics, blockchain, virtual reality, 3D printing and drones.

The ITES industry including the business process outsourcing achieved record exports in 2021. Services export for April-December 2021 reached more than $178 bn despite the Covid 19 pandemic when travel, hospitality and tourism were significantly down.

“New India is today being led by new troika of innovation, technology and entrepreneurship,” Goyal said.

He also unveiled a five-point future plan for NASSCOM with focus on delivering to core needs of people like better access to financial services, education and healthcare and problems of farmers.

The Minister identified high growth and job creating sectors such as advertising, marketing, professional services, fitness and wellness, gaming, sports and audio-visual services and called for supporting and mentoring startups from Tier-2 and 3 cities for them to play a substantive role in the years to come.

The Government has taken several steps to boost startup ecosystem in India – from removing problems of ‘Angel tax’, simplification of tax procedure to allowing self-certification and self-regulation.

There has also been action on reducing burden of over 26,500 compliances, decriminalization of 770 compliances while the digital infrastructure - Aadhaar, digilocker, fastag, cowin, UPI -- have enabled access and affordability.

“The next UPI moment will be the Open Network for Digital Commerce to enable interoperability between e-commerce companies.” said Goyal. It will provide equal opportunity to small and large players, help control digital monopolies, make industry more inclusive for buyers and sellers alike and empower MSMEs to unlock innovation and value.