T.N. government aims to take start-ups to villages, says StartupTN CEO

Sivarajah Ramanathan, Mission Director and Chief Executive Officer, StartupTN, speaking at the fireside chat session on Thursday.
| Photo Credit: B. JOTHI RAMALINGAM

The Tamil Nadu Startup and Innovation Mission (StartupTN) will be launching a scheme called Gramam Thorum Puthozhil (Establishing Start-ups in Villages) this year, focusing on inclusive entrepreneurship, rural innovation, and sustainable economic growth.

“We want to take the culture of innovation and entrepreneurship to villages,” Sivarajah Ramanathan, Mission Director and Chief Executive Officer, StartupTN, said in a fireside chat on “Harnessing Innovation: Tamil Nadu’s Role in the Global Startup Ecosystem.” The session was moderated by Kunal Shankar, Deputy Business Editor, The Hindu.

Highlighting the various initiatives of StartupTN, Mr. Ramanathan said: “Our primary mandate is to create a good ecosystem for start-up companies to start and grow in the State. We are creating funding schemes; we are working with Venture Capitalists to connect with start-ups. Our policy focuses on three major inclusive aspects — gender inclusivity, caste inclusivity, and geographical inclusivity. We have over 40 different schemes,” he added.

Throwing statistics on how the start-up ecosystem has grown over the last three years, Mr. Ramanathan said Tamil Nadu currently had over 10,700 start-ups. “This is a 5x growth. When we started, we were at the last in the national rankings but now we are competing with States such as Karnataka and Maharashtra,” he said.

When the moderator asked him about the yardstick used to define start-ups, he said: “In 2023, the Government of Tamil Nadu introduced a policy that slightly modified the Government of India’s definition of a start-up. While the Centre defines a start-up as being less than 10 years old with a turnover of less than ₹100 crore, Tamil Nadu’s policy revised the turnover threshold to ₹50 crore.”

“Additionally, to support social impact, Tamil Nadu’s definition expands beyond new innovations. For example, while e-commerce may no longer be considered an innovation, if a marginalised community — such as a tribal one — is using an online platform to sell their products, it qualifies as a start-up to us. The key criteria are that the start-up should benefit the community members,” Mr. Ramanathan added.

The event is presented by SRM Institute of Science and Technology, co-presented by StartupTN and in association with Sify Technologies. Retail GPT is the phygital commerce partner; Tally the technology partner; CII the strategic partner; ITC Mangaldeep the fragrance partner; and Puthiya Thalaimurai the TV partner.