Start-up Ecosystem in Rural India

The new business models are based on the out of box ideas and hence have come to be known as Start-ups. The potentially scalable innovations, when launched through Start-ups can create impactfulsolutions to the problems faced locally as well as at the global front and end up improving the qualityof human life.

In the recent times, unicorn term has been used for the start-ups with a valuation of over $1billion and defines the monetary success for the start-ups. India has also seen its share of success in the Start-up world. InMobi became India's first Unicorn to get the recognition in 2011, and since then we have grown many folds and today India is 4th across the world in producing unicorns.

Internet has been one of the most powerful tools of the modern world, it has brought the world closer than we could have ever thought of. Today, around 55 percent of our population uses internet and has become a readily available market to sell products. Therefore, made it easier and accessible to reach the customer base virtually from anywhere with Internet giving boost to the Start-up eco-system.

• Startup India programme: This initiative has been a game changer and has brought us to become third largest Start-up ecosystem in the world. In India, the Start-up eco-system has evolved to a great extent in the last decade. It started from a few metropolitans such as that of Bangalore, which many a times has been referred to as the Silicon Valley of India and then spilling to Mumbai, Delhi, and Hyderabad.
• Financial institutions have played an important role in boosting entrepreneurship across the globe; however, it is angel investors and adventure capital firms which have been instrumental for creating Startup eco-system.
• Incubation centers have become vehicles of change, bringing the change and becoming pivotal to the building of startup eco-system in the rural areas.
• The government doesn't directly incubate the Start-ups, but they fund setting up of incubators through various ministries and departments, such as that of Department of Science and Technology, Ministry of Electronics and Information technology, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade through Start-up India and NITI Aayog through Atal Innovation Mission.

CASE STUDY:

• Daskdan Innovations, a Srinagar, J&K based Start-up is one such example of start-up struggles and glory.In modern agricultural practices, often ignored is the risk of health hazards associated with the use of medically important drugs. This ignorance can lead to major public health.problems that include Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR). Daskdan Innovations has focused to limit the dependency on in-feed drugs used in the animal industry.
• The Start-up was recently awarded the Biotechnology Ignition Grant (BIG) from Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC), Dept. of Biotechnology, Government of India for a proof-of-concept (POC) that is focused on enhancement of animal health.
• Start-ups do not work in isolation and hence, are a part of the larger economic scene of the country and depends on the factors such as that of ease of doing business, the easy exit option, time bound registration, government documentation and standard operating procedure for government procurements keeping in mind the start-ups.
• Incentivising the larger companies for setting up incubation center and running acceleration programs in rural areas under the corporatesocial responsibility forfocusing on low-cost and high impact solutions can help speed up the process to further strengthening the start-up eco-system.
• However, history stands witness to the fact that homo-sapiens by their very nature have been enterprising from the very beginning.
• From the times, when we were food gatherers, to the times when food delivery apps deliver our meals at our doorsteps, we have come a long way.And that is where we learnt our first Start-up lesson, "Every problem is an opportunity in making”.If we continue to work with speed and hold on to our year on year growth, we are not far from becoming the world's best ecosystem for start-ups.