“Over the last nine years, India has taken a long distance from where it was before. I was also an entrepreneur at one point – it was many years ago and it seemed that at every stage, the system was against a startup,” he said speaking at the CII Startup Summit.
He recollected an incident in 2012, where in the Parliament, he introduced a document that showed that 97% of the Indian banking systems’ net worth had been lent to nine industrial groups.
“Back then our economic model pretty much depended on these 9-10 conglomerates and they represented the Indian economy and as they rose, the economy rose, as they fell, the economy fell and as they decided to go on holiday our economy went on a holiday,” he said.
He declared that today our economy is no longer captive to just two or three conglomerates but hundreds and thousands and hopefully, in some years, millions of startups that are creating economic activity, wealth, jobs, and contributing to the growth of our GDP.
He said that this is a very exciting time for young entrepreneurs in India as they have so many opportunities that exist now.
The summit focused on collaboration between corporates and startups and how such an equation can help foster an innovation ecosystem. With the theme of ‘Unlocking innovation through corporate startup Engagement,’ it aimed to highlight and deliberate the key areas of collaboration that could help facilitate such an endeavour.
