Gujarat has retained its position as the ‘Best Performer’ startup state in the country, according to the 2022 States Startup Ranking released on Tuesday by Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal commemorating National Startup Day 2024. Since 2018, Gujarat, among the most prosperous states in India, has bagged the ‘Best Performer’ award. The best performers are the states and union territories in the country with model state startup ecosystems, setting a benchmark for other states.
According to the results, “Gujarat has taken several praiseworthy initiatives. Some of them include: Launching the GVFL Startup Fund focused on early-stage startups by state-supported venture fund GVFL, supporting various government departments in the form of capacity-building programs and supporting tailored incentives and schemes, and nurturing startup ecosystem through incubation programs like Startup Grow.
The state is recognised as a capacity building pioneer, a funding leader, a procurement forerunner, a sustainability promoter, an incubation hub and mentorship champion, an innovative leader, and an institutional champion, the report said.
Other states in the best performer category following Gujarat were Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
The government of Karnataka has taken several praiseworthy initiatives such as launching Young Entrepreneurship Programmes for school and pre-university colleges, providing support to women entrepreneurs under the Elevate Women programme, building capacities of startups working on sectors focused on renewable energy and sustainability and climate change and rural impact, the report noted.
The results encompass five categories including Best Performers, Top Performers, Leaders, Aspiring Leaders, and Emerging Startup Ecosystems. “States / UTs that fall within the categories of Leaders and Aspiring Leaders representing the third and fourth tiers of performance were selected, where the international capacity building initiatives would have the most significant impact.” 26 states and seven union territories participated in the exercise.
Top performers are the ones who have shown significant growth in respective startup ecosystems and have established initiatives to nurture the entrepreneurs of the state while leaders are the states and UTs which have been continuously working towards building an effective startup ecosystem, according to the definition of categories under Startup India ranking.
Lastly, states and UTs identified as aspiring leaders are the ones working towards identifying and formulating initiatives to provide support to the startups in the State and UT and emerging startup ecosystems are the ones on the path of developing their startup ecosystem.
The top performer category was topped by Maharashtra followed by Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan and Telangana while Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand were categorised Leaders.
The Government of Maharashtra has taken several praiseworthy initiatives such as setting up Women Entrepreneurship Cell (WEC) to spur women entrepreneurship, developing initiatives to support startups in the disruptive sector by amending regulations and introducing new policies, conducting comprehensive capacity building and awareness programs for student entrepreneurs to drive innovation, facilitating the Design-led innovation challenge to provide startups with a platform to showcase their innovative solutions, the report said.
Aspiring Leaders had two states, Bihar and Haryana while Emerging Ecosystems included Chhattisgarh, Delhi and Jammu & Kashmir.
“The Government of NCT of Delhi has taken several praiseworthy initiatives. Some of them include: Conducting awareness programs and workshops with higher education institutions to sensitize and support budding student entrepreneurs and boosting startup ecosystem with setting up new or upgrading incubators,” the report added.