IANS | 26 Feb, 2024
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.
