Ahead of India’s budget session tomorrow, the Nation’s Economic Survey stated that India has over 61,400 startups recognised by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) with at least 14,000 recognised during financial year 2022 from only 733 in 2016-17, adding that 555 districts in India had at least one new startup.

As per the Economic Survey 2021-22, over the recent years, Delhi has replaced Bangalore as the startup capital of India. Over 5,000 recognised startups were added in Delhi, while 4,514 startups were added in Bangalore between April 2019 to December 2021. With a total of 11,308 startups, Maharashtra has the highest number of recognised startups.

Indian startups snagged record investments of up to $3.5 billion across 130 deals through January marking a decadal high amid a downturn in global markets, signalling sustained investor interest in the country's booming startup ecosystem.

"As a result, India becomes the third largest country in number of unicorns. It overtook the UK to emerge third after the US and China which added 487 and 301 unicorns respectively in 2021, leaving behind UK. Further, a record 44 Indian startups have achieved unicorn status in 2021, taking the overall tally of unicorns in India to 83, most of these are in the services sector," the Economic Survey noted.

Unicorns are startups that achieve a valuation of $1 billion.

The strong showing comes in the wake of a mega year for venture capital investments as Indian startups mopped up $34.7 billion across 1070 deals in calendar year 2021, a near 200% increase from 2020 when $11.4 billion was invested across 795 deals.