Chamber of Startups Plans to Promote Unicorns in Uttar Pradesh

A global socioeconomic shift is being made possible by the current tech revolution. It has expanded the startup environment in India's Tier 2, 3, and 4 cities at the micro-level. 

After decades of being the birthplace of "startups" and "entrepreneurship," India's economy has now branched out beyond its metropolises. One such state is Uttar Pradesh, which has strong entrepreneurial traits and is rapidly evolving into a new hub for investors and entrepreneurs. 

Although Uttar Pradesh is steadily gaining attention, it still trails below metropolitan cities in the number of business opportunities. 

Considering this to promote the real potential of the Uttar Pradesh Chamber of startups which is an exclusive association of the startups like CII, ASSOCHAM and FICCI organized its first meeting on 23rd January to discuss the subject of” how to promote unicorns from the real U.P” in the state capital. The event was co-organized by Luck-Know Startup School which has close to 700+ startups as its members now. Besides Members, it has also created a national and global cohort of mentors, VCs & angel investors, industry leaders, IT firms, and professionals from different fields.

The event marks India's first exclusive Chamber of Startups, which includes mentors from around the nation and abroad. Mentors from a variety of fields, including business, banking, administration, start-up policy, technology, and venture capital firms, took part in the hybrid conference, which was held both online and offline. They include Rajesh Ediga, Lokveeraj Tech Solutions, Stockholm, Swarup Kumar Patnaik, Vice-President, MRF, Vivek Tripathi, Director, Induckt Global VC, Divyanshu Kumar Shukla, Policy engagement partner, StartInUP, Govt of UP, Payalh Agarwal, MD, Zolina Express, Gurugram, Badrinath Mishra, V President, ONDC, Govt of Mr. guests India project. 

Mr. Diptivilasa, a former IAS and independent director of a public sector bank, and Er. Awanish Kumar Singh, president of the Chamber, attended the event as chief guest.

The discussion begins as Uttar Pradesh is a consumer state with 24cr consumers. The state ranks 4th overall in India contributing 19.2 L cr to the state GDP it has contributed 26% to the agricultural sector, followed by 49% to the service sector, and 25% to the industrial sector. However, the state isn't included in the top 8 startups ranking list of 2021. Chandra Mishra, Director General of the Chamber, expressed his sadness that Uttar Pradesh didn't make the list despite having such great potential.

Mr. Diptivilasa emphasized that India is the third-largest economy in the world and the third-largest generator of unicorns, so we can expect that in the next 5 to 10 years, the country will see significant growth, of which startups in Uttar Pradesh must be a part. Varanasi, a holy tourist destination with abundant business potential, heavily taps into the startups in Uttar Pradesh. Apart from the fact that Uttar Pradesh is one of the country's developing economies, there are a lot of untapped potentials in Central and Eastern UP that could provide the groundwork for a powerful national brand and create a tonne of job opportunities.

The mentor, Ms. Payalh Agarwal, underlined the need for building a unicorn out of miniature tea stalls. The importance of tea in our society is underrated. In India, it is customary to invite guests over for tea. Tea has been a key component of many talks and business meetings. Although we now have fancy cafes, it all began with nukkad chai vendors. So why not encourage these tea stalls to flourish? We can encourage women to run these stalls instead of mandating that they be operated and run by men.

Divyanshu Shukla, a policy engagement partner with StartinUP, participated in the event as a mentor. He also runs a platform called PapSwap. According to Divyanshu, their goal is to create at least 5000 startups in Uttar Pradesh's Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. The Uttar Pradesh government is very interested in creating product-type startups, so I do not doubt that we will achieve something big for Uttar Pradesh.

Like these all the mentors had some excellent suggestions for promoting unicorns from Uttar Pradesh. The program ended on a high note when Er Awanish Kumar Singh, MLC, gave the startup founders and mentors assurances that the administration of Hon. Chief Minister Shri Adityanath Yogi ji would offer all required assistance to promote national brands and unicorns from the state.

According to Chandra Mishra, director general of the Chamber, the Luck-Know Start-up School is being developed by the Chamber to bring together a national and international cohort of business, technology, venture capital, and marketing experts to identify and speed up potential start-ups, build national brands, raise INR 1,000 crore in venture capital funding in three years, and promote unicorns from "Real UP."

The Chamber has already been approached by certain businesses in the US, UK, Australia, and other nations with proposals for corporate partnerships. A national tea brand has expressed interest in taking 100 tea stalls in Lucknow by the hand and guiding them from street side stalls to their own cafes, while a Stockholm-based IT company has joined the Chamber's Technology Partner. To showcase the startup tales, The News Agency, a Lucknow-based news organization, has joined the Chamber as an information partner.