The number of startups in India will increase 10X over the next four-five years, said Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar while speaking at an event in Hyderabad.

“From 108 unicorns I am sure we will reach 10,000 in the next 4-5 years. Today we have over a lakh startups in India and it will increase by 10 times,” the minister said.

Although the startup ecosystem in India continues to face several issues such as funding winter, corporate governance lapses, layoffs, shutdowns, the government seems to keep its faith in the growth of the ecosystem.

While India started its startup journey in 2014, the country’s tech landscape was limited to IT and ITes. However, since then, opportunities have emerged across various domains such as deep tech, AI, data economy, semiconductor design, microelectronics, and high-performance computing, among others, the minister added.

“We continue to work with the industry in partnership with big and small companies and they tell us what these skills are and the Government partners towards creating a framework that is developed through a network academia. Community and corporate partnerships are very important elements to startups,” Chandrasekhar stated.

Earlier this month, the minister expressed his optimism for tech space at another event, where he said that India is in an ‘exciting period’ when it comes to the technology space and the progress made by the country will result in future cloud systems being powered by servers made in India.

Startup Ecosystem Continues To Struggle

The statement comes at a time when a funding winter keeps tormenting the entire Indian startup ecosystem. As per Inc42 data, the startup funding declined 78.5% year-on-year (YoY) to $580 Mn in June 2023. In the first six months of 2023, funding raised by Indian startups declined 72% YoY to $5.4 Bn, down from $19 Bn during the same period last year.

Moreover, the year has not yet seen any startup entering the unicorn club. However, Inc42 reported that the year 2023 might see its first unicorn in the form of quick commerce startup Zepto.

Zepto is currently in advanced discussions to secure around $150 Mn in its upcoming Series E funding round, which would value it at $1.3 Bn. The funding round is likely to conclude in the next one month.

Meanwhile, layoffs continue in the startup ecosystem. Upskilling startup Skill-Lync, fintech startup Navi Technologies, agritech startup WayCool, are some of the startups which have conducted layoffs recently.

Since the onset of the funding winter in 2022, an estimated 27,103 employees have been laid off by 102 Indian startups, including several unicorns and soonicorns, as per Inc42 data.