The Government has announced thematic funds in the Budget of 2022-23 to promote sunrise sectors, including deep-tech. Moreover, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has initiated several schemes/programmes to support technology startups, including deep tech startups.
As per NASSCOM strategic report 2023, total number of technology startups is 27,000 out of which 3,200+ are deep tech startups (~12%). As the capital-intensive growth is required in deep tech startups, several challenges are also being faced, including tax incentive(s), investor connect, consumer and supplier connect, global outreach with soft landing and long-term sustainability. The MeitY has undertaken a slew of proactive, pre-emptive and graded measures to spur the technology led startup-innovation ecosystem in the country and giving an impetus to the new and emerging technologies. This proactive approach builds from established best practices designed to strengthen the overall tech startup development infrastructure by overcoming persistent bottlenecks to work grounds up seamlessly. Some of the major initiatives have been elucidated below:
TIDE 2.0 Scheme: Technology Incubation and Development of Entrepreneurs (TIDE 2.0) Scheme was initiated in the year 2019 to promote tech entrepreneurship through financial and technical support to incubators engaged in supporting ICT startups using emerging technologies such as IoT, AI, Block-chain, Robotics, etc. The Scheme is being implemented through 51 incubators through a three-tiered structure with an overarching objective to promote incubation activities at institutes of higher learning and premier R&D organisations. The scheme is expected to provide incubation support to approximately 2,000 tech startups with an overall outlay of Rs 264 crore over a period of five years.
Domain specific Centres of Excellence: The MeitY has envisaged and operationalised 26 Centres of Excellence (CoEs) in diverse areas of national interest for driving self-sufficiency and creating capabilities to capture new and emerging technology areas. These domain specific CoEs are act as enablers and aid in making India an innovation hub in emerging through democratisation of innovation and realisation of prototypes.
SAMRIDH Scheme: The Government has launched the ‘Startup Accelerator Programme of MeitY for Product Innovation, Development and Growth (SAMRIDH)’ in August 2021 with an aim to support existing and upcoming accelerators to further select and accelerate potential software product-based startups to scale. The total cost of the scheme is Rs 99 crore for a duration of 3 years. A total of 300 startups are to be supported under the SAMRIDH Scheme.
Next Generation Incubation Scheme (NGIS): The NGIS has been approved to support software product ecosystem and to address a significant portion of National Policy on Software Product (NPSP) 2019. The Scheme is proposed to be launched from 12 locations i.e., Agartala, Bhilai, Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Dehradun, Guwahati, Jaipur, Lucknow, Prayagraj, Mohali/ Chandigarh, Patna and Vijayawada. The Scheme has solution-oriented architecture and aims to handhold 300 Tech startups in tier-2/3 cities over the period of 3 years with total budget outlay of Rs 95.03 crore.
Support for International Patent Protection in E&IT (SIP-EIT) Scheme: The Government had initiated a scheme titled “Support for International Patent Protection in E&IT (SIP-EIT) that encourages international patent filing by Indian MSMEs and start-ups to encourage innovation and recognise the value and capabilities of global IP. Reimbursement provided under the scheme is up to a maximum of Rs15 lakhs per invention or 50 per cent of the total expenses incurred in filing and processing of patent application up to grant whichever is lesser.
GENESIS (Gen-Next Support for Innovative Startups): Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has launched an umbrella program Digital India-GENESIS to discover, support, grow and make successful startups in Tier-II and Tier-III cities with emphasis on collaborative engagement among startups, government and corporates for promoting digitisation based on the principals of inclusivity, accessibility, affordability, leading to growth in employment and economic outputs.
