Startup Digest: Let's target 75 unicorns in 2022, says Piyush Goyal, Kotak Group & BharatPe's Ashneer Grover locked in legal spat, Paytm hit fresh low, Microsoft's Satya Nadella invests in Groww

cnbctv18.com:

Let's target 75 unicorns in 2022: Piyush Goyal Commerce and Industry minister Piyush Goyal said that 2021 will always be remembered as the year of unicorns or startups valued at $1 billion or more. He pointed out that India now has the world's third-largest number of unicorns — 82 in total, with more than half of them added to the list over the last 12 months."Let's target to nurture additional 75 unicorns in this year," said Goyal while addressing the inaugural session of the first-ever Startup India Innovation Week — a week-long event which seeks to bring together India's startup ecosystem for the sharing of experience and ideas."Startups have turned COVID-19 into an opportunity from a crisis" he said, highlighting the rise of unicorns during the pandemic.

"Our startups can play a very important role to socialise and democratise the availability of healthcare across the world," he added.In Goyal's opinion, startups are the key reason behind India's meteoric rise in the Global Innovation Index from 76 in 2014 to 46 in 2021. "We have broken into the ranks of Top-50.

But, we should all now collectively aspire to breach the top-25 ranks in the Global Innovation Index," he said.He also said that entrepreneurs should also focus on strengthening the make in India programme, innovating in India and mentoring young startups. "Today, four startups are being recognised — every hour — in my department, with 45 percent of them belonging to tier-2 and tier-3 cities", he said, adding that 46 percent of startups have women co-founders.Talking about some of the steps taken by the government to ease the process of starting up in India, Goyal highlighted the impact of reduction in patent filing fees, relaxation in the public procurement