• Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal chaired the sixth meeting of the National Startup Advisory Council (NSAC) on March 11.

• Goyal launched the Startup India Investor Connect portal, ideated by the Council and co-developed by the department for the promotion of industry and internal trade (DPIIT) and Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI). 

• The portal will be a one stop gateway, like a B2B Marketplace, for Indian startup ecosystem to interact and transact with one another especially amongst investors, and startups. 

• It will be the national portal for investor-startup matchmaking and act as a single gateway to access information required by the startup ecosystem from central/state government departments. The Platform also intends to be developed into a knowledge hub for potential Entrepreneurs for beginning their journey.

National Startup Advisory Council

• The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) constituted the National Startup Advisory Council (NSAC) to advise the government on measures needed to build a strong ecosystem for nurturing innovation and startups in the country to drive sustainable economic growth and generate large scale employment opportunities. 

• The first meeting of the NSAC was conducted on April 15, 2021. 

• The NSAC is chaired by minister for commerce & industry. 

• Besides the ex-officio members, the council has a number of non-official members, representing various stakeholders such as founders of successful startups, veterans who have grown and scaled companies in India, persons capable of representing interest of investors into startups, persons capable of representing interests of incubators and accelerators, representatives of associations of stakeholders of startups and representatives of industry associations. 

• It is a one of its kind congregation wherein the policy making process is driven as part of collaboration between all the key stakeholders of the startup ecosystem.

• NSAC is playing an important role in identifying areas of interventions for expansion of startup ecosystem and ideating and nurturing national programs under Startup India initiative. 

• Programmes such as MAARG, National Mentorship Programme, Incubator Capacity Development Programme, Adoption of NavIC Grand Challenge, Startup Champions 2.0, etc are some of the programmes ideated and incubated by NSAC.

The Council suggests measures to:

• Foster a culture of innovation amongst citizens and students in particular.

• Promote innovation in all sectors of economy across the country, including semi-urban and rural areas. 

• Support creative and innovative ideas through incubation and research and development to transform them into valuable products, processes or solutions to improve productivity and efficiency.

• Create an environment of absorption of innovation in industry. 

• Facilitate public organisations to assimilate innovation with a view to improving public service delivery.

• Promote creation, protection and commercialisation of intellectual property rights.

• Make it easier to start, operate, grow and exit businesses by reducing regulatory compliances and costs.

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