July 05, 2022

Assam has been recognised as a Leader in Category A (a population over 1 crore) in developing a strong startup ecosystem in the state, in the States’ Startup Ranking 2021. This has been a steep progression from its previous recognition of being an Emerging Startup Ecosystem.

The state was appreciated for facilitating the launch of the state-of-the-art incubator, Assam Startup – the nest to nurture entrepreneurship, providing incentives and financial to women entrepreneurs and conducting a high number of outreach programs with key ecosystem players. It has gained special recognition as a Mentorship Champion for building a large mentorship network for startups.

The States’ Startup Ranking is an annual report by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), grading the Indian states and UTs according to their startup ecosystems. The report grades a state based on 26 action points such as funding, mentorship, institutional support and enabling the enablers, among others. Assam has scored 100^th percentile in providing mentorship support and recorded 60^th percentile in capacity building of enablers, 44^th in incubation support and 38^th in institutional support as compared to the other participating States and Union Territories.

The 24 states and 7 Union Territories that participated in the exercise in Category A and B were classified under 5 categories: best performers, top performers, leaders, aspiring leaders and emerging startup ecosystems.

It’s important to note that Assam was clubbed in Category A, competing with states boasting of advanced startup ecosystems like Gujarat, Kerala, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Delhi and Odisha.

Assam outshone advanced states and UTs like Delhi and Andhra Pradesh to win recognition as a Leader alongside Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab in Category A (a population of over 1 Crore) and Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Andaman and Nicobar Islands in Category B (a population under 1 Crore).

IIM Calcutta Innovation Park has been working untiringly to nourish and nurture the startup ecosystem in the state since September 2018, when Department of Industries, Commerce and Public Enterprise, Government of Assam, had ordained the B-School incubator to drive the Assam Startup initiative as a Knowledge Partner.

Assam Startup – the nest: Impact and Outcome

Since its inauguration on January 20, 2019, Assam Startup – the nest has incubated 179 startups in three batches run in a COHORT mode. More than 50 mentors of national and global repute have engaged dedicatedly with the startups. Over 30 investors have interacted with the startups towards helping them hone the art of pitching before the investors and polish the pitch deck, and eventually exploring possibilities of investing in the startups.

The incubated startups have succeeded in impacting around 8.74 lakhs lives and provided 450+ direct employment opportunities. 56 of them have together raised a funding of Rs. 32 crores. The MASI (My Assam Startup ID) grant of Rs. 4 crores by Government of Assam had especially been a saviour for 45 startups during the pandemic, which helped them save their businesses from the catastrophic impact of lockdown.

With regards to the overall development of the startup ecosystem in the state, Assam Startup – the nest has, so far, carried out 450+ awareness events, reaching out to over 18,000+ students, young innovators and aspiring startups across every district of Assam. Initiating the Hub & Spoke model, Assam Startup – the nest (Hub) has, to date, signed 45 collaboration memoranda with top universities and colleges and has organized 36 Hackathons and B-Plan Contests towards identifying and encouraging startup ideas in the state. 10 Spoke Incubation Centres have been launched at various academic institutions to facilitate initial incubation support to the fledgling startups.