Announcing a slew of measures to boost growth of startups, the Karnataka government said it aims at ensuring that Bengaluru breaks into the world’s top 10 startup ecosystems.

According to Global Startup Ecosystem Ranking Report 2015, the city is the second fastest growing startup ecosystem in the world and is the only Indian city to be ranked among the best 15 startup ecosystems across the world.

 “The idea that we have envisaged is to ensure that 20,000 startups are groomed by our startup policy. We are going to have a dedicated startup cell, we are going to have a dedicated startup booster kit and we are going have a dedicated fund to ensure things,” Minister of Information Technology & Bio Technology Priyank Kharge said.

He said for the first time the department has got 360 degree solutions for the initiatives and more importantly its much required direct intervention to the startups though the open house.

 “With this we hope to continue as the torch bearer of the IT and BT industry in India and we will continue to be the startup capital of India. We are already into the top 15 startup ecosystems in the world and the aim is to break into the top 10,” he added.

The government said that in 2016-17, the Department of IT and BT would have special focus on further strengthening the idea of innovation and leveraging to give impetus to the growth of startups through its startup policy 2015-2020.

In order to give the startup sector the much needed springboard, the department has setup a ‘Startup Cell’ in KBITS (Karnataka Biotechnology and Information Technology Services) to implement the startup policy initiatives.

The cell also facilitates sanction of incentives and concessions under the policy to startups registered with it.

The cell has also put together a ‘Startup Karnataka Booster Kit’ for the benefit of startups registered with it. It contains a gamut of software tools, cloud credits, access to mentors, legal and accounting consultants, access to government funding and its supported incubators, among others.

 Source: The Economic Times