Goyal Urges Global Venture Capital Funds To Focus On Startups From Tier-2 And Tier-3 Cities

Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal has called upon the global Venture Capital (VC) funds to focus more on startups from tier-2 and tier-3 cities.

Chairing the Fourth Roundtable with Global Venture Capital Funds, organised by the Commerce Ministry's Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Goyal invited the VCs to explore new sectors for investing, promoting and protecting the intellectual property created by the young Indian entrepreneurs and provide expertise to scale-up and explore greater capital infusion including risk capital, according to a Commerce Ministry release.

The government has already taken a number of steps to support the Startups and would do so in the future also, he added.

According to the ministry, during the meeting, it was pointed out that India is home to over 61,000 recognised startups spread across 55 industries, with 45 per cent of them emerging from tier 2 and 3 cities and 45 per cent of startups having at least one woman director.

The roundtable was held through video conference as part of the Startup India Innovation Week.

Over 75 VC fund investors from across the United States, Japan, Korea, Singapore, and some global funds domiciled in India participated in the deliberations. These funds have a total Assets Under Management (AUM) of more than $30 billion in the Indian region, the ministry said.

A number of suggestions were made by the global VC funds, which they felt could further the investors’ sentiment in the sector, it added.