The Startup India Hub was launched today by Nirmala Sitharaman, Hon’ble Commerce & Industry Minister, for all stakeholders of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in India to discover, connect and engage with each other. The portal will host startups, investors, funds, mentors, academia, incubators, accelerators, corporates, Government bodies and more. The Hub attempts to solve the problem of information asymmetry and lack of access to knowledge, tools & experts, especially in the nascent ecosystems across Tier II and III towns.
The Virtual Hub will act as an interactive platform that will facilitate learning & development, networking, mentorship, funding, etc. for startups. The basic principle behind developing this platform is to aggregate different offerings of the ecosystem and enable discovery by the right audience. Startup India Hub has partnered with various organizations to on-board entrepreneurs & investors, as well as build knowledge modules. It offers a personalized dashboard to connect with relevant stakeholders and will include market research reports and other related news updates from over 20 selected sources.
It will also act act as a nodal platform and will enable users to connect with ecosystem stakeholders, access free learning resources, tools & templates on legal, HR, accounting & regulatory issues and discussion forums. The Hub has also aggregated over 50 relevant Govt schemes/programs. In the next phase, the platform will also aggregate schemes available across various state governments. To provide a better user experience, the platform has been enabled to build smart intelligence along with Chatbots to automatically collate, update information and respond to queries.
Speaking about the need to bring the entire ecosystem together on one platform, Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman mentioned that Startup India Virtual Hub is an effort to create a marketplace where all the stakeholders can interact, exchange knowledge, and enable each other to grow. It will streamline the lifecycle of existing and potential startups, helping them access the right resources at the right time. She also encouraged all entrepreneurs in India to utilize this portal and all enabling stakeholders to contribute to the platform as much as possible. Similar to the recent announcement wherein India and Germany had tied up for sharing startup ideas and expertise, the Minister also announced a new initiative, wherein a Startup exchange program amongst the SAARC nations would be organized. This would bring together like-minded individuals from the startup ecosystem to devise mutually beneficial products and services through partnered synergies.
She went on to invite people from the startup community and beyond to come forward and partner with the government in ‘branding’ Indian products and services. She called upon those in the marketing and related industry for collaborating on the same.
To ensure accessibility across various platforms, dedicated Apps are also available on both Android and iOS.
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