New Delhi, Feb 26 The country has created a thriving startup innovation ecosystem in the past 2-3 years and the next wave will emerge from areas such as semiconductors, microelectronics, artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing, Union Minister of State for Electronics and IT, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, said on Monday.
The minister, who launched ‘Investor Information and Analytics Platform’ developed by IIT Madras, said this platform will address the gap in “our visibility of the innovation ecosystem”.
A key feature of this platform is 'StartupGPT' which is an AI-based conversational platform whose function is to help ease information access for those who are navigating exhaustive data.
“I view this as a valuable resource for researchers who will study and utilise it to comprehend the growth within the ecosystem. This understanding can also help public policymakers in crafting responses and initiatives aligned with these dynamics,” said Chandrasekhar.
He said that this “holistic approach is crucial for comprehensively researching the innovation ecosystem, particularly to understand that we have created a thriving startup innovation ecosystem in the past 2-3 years”.
The platform will act as a one-stop shop for startups to seamlessly access venture capitalists (VCs) and investors networks, government schemes and several other components of the startup landscape for all stakeholders.
The free-of-cost platform has been developed by researchers at the Centre for Research on Start-ups and Risk Financing (CREST) of IIT Madras.
The platform has information on more than 200,000 start-ups, close to 11,000 angel investors and 5,000 VCs, about 1,000 incubators, more than 100 government agencies that fund start-ups, and about 550 banks that have supported the start-ups.
“As India progresses towards a ‘Viksit Bharat’ on the back of a strong innovation driven economy, platforms such as these would play an important role in democratising access to information and capital that can accelerate the commercialisation of innovation,” said Professor Thillai Rajan A, Head, CREST, IIT Madras.
"The biggest beneficiaries would be the hundreds and thousands of young entrepreneurs who would be able to easily identify the experts, investors and mentors most appropriate for their ventures,” added Rajan, also a faculty in the department of management studies.
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