India is geared to celebrate its 71st Republic Day following a turbulent last few months with respect to the domestic policies unveiled and a slowdown in its economy as reported by the IMF. Yet, celebrating its booming 'Startups: Reach for the Sky', culture in the presence of Brazilian President Jair Messias Bolsonaro, the country will host a tableau showcasing stages of the lifecycle of a startup and the all-round support provided by the Government.
Whilst this start-up culture has not only boosted growth in India, it has also strengthened UK-India business relations with data indicating that over $2 billion being invested in London-based businesses across 114 deals, surpassing totals seen in any previous year, as noted by ‘A Fine Year for Fintech: Global Trends from a UK Perspective' by London & Partners.
The data indicates that Indian-origin entrepreneur Rishi Khosla's start-up OakNorth, a scale-up business lender which uses an artificial intelligence model to provide loans for small and medium sized companies to be able to grow their businesses, brought in $440 million into London, making it the third-largest fintech investment deal in Europe after Berlin and Stockholm.
But the start-up culture is not the only aspect of the economy that India celebrates today. According to a Harvard Business Review (HBR) list last year, Adobe's Shantanu Narayen, Mastercard’s Ajay Banga and Microsoft’s Satya Nadella were among the top 10 best-performing chief executives in the world. This means that some of the best performing CEOs of global companies are of Indian origin. This week over 100 CEOs and also some Union and Chief Ministers from India were present at theWorld Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2020, alongside film star Deepika Padukone and Sadhguru. Here they will focus on addressing the world’s greatest challenges, from societal divisions created by income inequality and political polarization to the climate crisis.
Those who are registered from India include industry leaders Gautam Adani, Rahul and Sanjiv Bajaj, Kumar Mangalam Birla, N. Chandrasekaran of Tata Group, Uday Kotak, Rajnish Kumar of SBI, Anand Mahindra, Sunil and Rajan Mittal, Ravi Ruia, Pawan Munjal, Nandan Nilekani and Salil Parekh of Infosys, C. Vijayakumar of HCL Tech, Ajay Piramal, Rishad Premji, Ajay Singh and Pirojsha Godrej.
Now, under the Startup India Scheme, eligible companies can get recognised as startups by the ministry in order to access a host of tax benefits, easier compliance, IPR fast tracking and other incentives. More than 26,000 startups from 551 districts of 28 States and 7 Union Territories have been recognized so far and this will only boost UK-India business ties in future as more start-ups look forward to penetrating the UK market and establishing their European headquarters in London.
