With 135 unicorns, over 1.4 lakh startups India created third-best ecosystem: Amitabh Kant

Amitabh Kant, former CEO of NITI Aayog and G20 Sherpa, highlighted India’s rapid transformation into the third-best startup ecosystem globally, with 135 unicorns and over 1.4 lakh startups.

In an exclusive interview with ANI, reflecting on the growth of the startup ecosystem, Kant remarked, “We started with 356 startups. Today we have 1,40,000 startups. We have about 135 unicorns. We’ve created the third-best ecosystem in the world. The startup ecosystem would get a huge impetus from the abolition of the angel tax, which is now being done.”

Kant praised the removal of the Angel Tax in this year’s budget, which will benefit startups. He also stressed the importance of creating global champions through initiatives like the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme.

In this year’s budget, the Angel Tax has been removed, which will greatly help the startups in India. Calling for a more substantial local investment to sustain the growth of the sector, Kant said, “We would now require a lot of Indians, Indian pension funds, insurance companies, all to invest in our own startup. 75 per cent of the resources in our startup movement come from abroad. More and more Indians must invest in our own startup movement. That is the way forward. But we’ve done remarkably well as a startup nation.”

Kant also highlighted India’s ambition to become a global economic powerhouse by 2047, stressing the importance of domestic investment and the government’s push to create global champions through initiatives like the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme.

On the global stage, Kant believes that India is viewed as a key driver of growth in a challenging global economic environment.

Underscoring India’s robust growth rate, terming it as “remarkable”, Kant said, “India is the fastest-growing nation. We have grown at about 8.4 per cent which is remarkable and we will accelerate the pace of our growth as we go further. We want to become the third-largest economy in the world.”

India’s ambition to become the third-largest economy in the world is within reach, but Kant stressed that the country must focus on scaling up businesses.

Kant emphasised, “Most countries look at India as oasis of growth in the mist of a very barren economic landscape across the world. And most countries across the world have great regard for India’s acceleration of economic growth. We need to see many more states as champions of growth, we need to see many more companies becoming big in India. We need to ensure that our micro-companies become small and our small become medium, and the medium companies go on to become big companies in India.”

“Some of the measures that we have taken, particularly the production incentive scheme, are aimed at producing global champions in India. The more large companies we have, the more backward-forward integrations we have with MSMEs”, he added.

Looking ahead to India’s Vision 2047, Kant shared his perspective and said, “My view is very simply that Amrit Kaal is a journey towards Amrit Kaal. It requires a lot of us to work hard. Every Indian must get committed to India with a clear vision that we have to make India a developed country.”

He added, “Every Indian must not merely have the vision but also deliver and work hard on the ground. Every Indian must focus on improving education and health for several other Indians around him and every Indian must be a catalyst to India’s big growth story of the next three to four decades.”