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According to a report by Orios Venture Partners, the average time required by an Indian startup to turn into a Unicorn has declined to about 5.5 years in 2023. Till 2022, it was close to about 8.4 years. Owing to the uncertainty in the market, India witnessed only two unicorns in 2023. Startups with over USD 1 billion in valuation are termed unicorns. Interestingly, around 15 have till now gone public on the Indian public market.

Union Minister of Commerce and Industry, Piyush Goyal said that startups are playing a pivotal role in India s journey towards becoming a developed nation by 2047. While addressing the Startup Awards and State Ranking Awards function in New Delhi on Wednesday, the Minister commended the significant progress made in the startup sector over the last eight years, stating that what was once a novelty has now become an integral part of the national mainstream.

The India Startup Outlook report by InnoVen Capital, released on Thursday, indicates that around 62% of founders prioritized profitability overgrowth in 2023, up from 55% in 2022. Additionally, Orios Venture Partners report, also released this week, observed that unicorns in 2023 increasingly focussed on profitability, with 23 now in the green.

On the back of National Startups Day, Microsoft hosts discussion with key startup founders on AI s role in scaling Indian startups Sangeeta Bavi, Executive Director, Digital Natives, Microsoft India, Pratik Desai, Founder and CEO at Kissan.ai, Laina Emmanuel, Cofounder and CEO at BrainSight AI, and Lakshman Pasala, Cofounder and CEO at NeverInstall, discuss how startups across India can use the power of AI to scale, innovate and grow their business

The Indian government has urged unicorns across India to provide at least 30 minutes of mentorship to budding startups via the government backed MAARG Portal. Chairing a meeting with founders and representatives of unicorns, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal exhorted them to voluntarily mentor the startup ecosystem to make it more robust and help achieve India s target of becoming the largest host country for startup unicorns.

President Droupadi Murmu has urged the women entrepreneurs to identify other enterprising women and think of new ways to support them in their journey of empowerment. The President interacted with a group of women who are founders and cofounders of leading startups and unicorns at Rashtrapati Bhavan on Thursday.

Entrepreneurship is in the air! India has witnessed an unprecedented surge in the creation and funding of startups in the last ten years as the country solidified its position as a major global center for innovation and businesses with a rise in the number of tech companies in India to 122,000 to date, with a peak in 2020, witnessing more than 16,000 new additions.

Indian startups are hoping for a better year as majority of them expect higher valuations from investors amid increased focus on profitability and sustainable operations. According to the latest edition of the India Startup Outlook Report by debt firm InnoVen Capital released on Thursday, a whopping 85 per cent (mostly early-stage founders) of the 100 VC/PE backed startup leaders surveyed in the report said they expect higher valuations in their next round of funding relative to the last round.

The commerce and industry ministry has urged the unicorn startups to mentor budding entrepreneurs through government backed MAARG portal, an official said. The MAARG (Mentorship, Advisory, Assistance, Resilience, and Growth) platform was launched in January last year to facilitate mentorship for startups across diverse sectors, and geographies.

The Commerce and Industry Ministry has urged the unicorn startups to mentor budding entrepreneurs through government backed MAARG portal, an official said. The MAARG (Mentorship, Advisory, Assistance, Resilience, and Growth) platform was launched in January last year to facilitate mentorship for startups across diverse sectors, and geographies.