Nearly 44,000 startups registered with the government in 2025, the highest annual increase since the launch of Startup India, PM Modi said on Friday, January 16, 2025, at an event celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Startup India scheme. Launched on January 16, 2016, this key initiative aims to support innovation, promote entrepreneurship, and drive investment-led growth.
The biggest jump by PM Modi
“I’m even more pleased to see that the momentum of Startup India is steadily increasing,” Mr.Modi said. “Today’s startups are becoming unicorns, unicorns are launching their IPOs, and creating more and more jobs. Last year alone, in 2025, nearly 44,000 new startups were registered. This is the biggest jump in any single year since the launch of Startup India.”
He noted that the Startup India mission has become a “revolution” in India, positioning the country as the third-largest startup ecosystem in the world.
Deep tech in focus
After the event, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal told the media that the focus of the Fund of Funds 2.0, approved in April 2025 with a corpus of ₹10,000 crore, would be on deep tech. This includes areas with significant innovation, such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, quantum technologies, defence, and aerospace.
“These are areas where the country has a need, and where we want to become a global leader,” Mr. Goyal said. “Usually, startups in these fields take a long time to reach the proof-of-concept stage and become successful. The focus will be on making more risk capital available for this.”
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