Indian startups can contribute as much as established industries: FM | India Business News

Finance Minister speaking at Sangam 2026 by IIT Madras Alumni Association (IITMAA), held in Bengaluru on Saturday.

BENGALURU: Indian startups could in the next couple of years contribute as much to the economy as some of the country’s established industries, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Saturday, urging technology startups to look beyond early-stage funding and consider public-market listings as they scale.Speaking at the IIT Madras Alumni Association’s Sangam 2026 held in Bengaluru, Sitharaman said the startup ecosystem had changed considerably since 2015 and called for technologies developed by young companies to find wider applications across the economy.“The innovations which happen in startups will have to get into every sector,” she said, citing agriculture and drones as examples of technologies being put to wider use.Sitharaman also pushed back against the view that India had missed the artificial intelligence opportunity. The relatively small number of AI companies listed on stock exchanges should not be taken as a measure of the innovation taking place in the country, she said. India already has AI companies that have become unicorns or are approaching that stage, she added.Founders building technology should not have to spend a large part of their time raising capital or handling managerial and administrative responsibilities, Sitharaman said. They should have partners who can take on those functions and think beyond initial and later-stage funding to whether a company should eventually go public.“Get yourselves listed also where you can,” she told the audience, adding that a cluster of listed AI companies could make India’s progress in the sector more visible globally.On the shortage of patient capital for deeptech companies, Sitharaman sought specific suggestions from the startup ecosystem. Responding to a question on hardware startups that can take years to generate revenue, she asked the questioner to spell out how early funding needs to be made available and how much capital would be required.“Tell us what is early. Tell us what is ‘enough,’ I’ll work for it,” she said, asking for the proposal within 10 days.Sitharaman also pointed to the space sector as an example of what opening sectors to private participation can achieve, saying young companies are now designing satellites and participating in space missions. Similar opportunities exist in defence, she said, where there is scope for greater investment from both private and public capital.Separately, Sitharaman said India needs greater investment in AI infrastructure, including hardware, as well as skills and training to help businesses adopt the technology. AI, semiconductors and quantum computing are among the areas where further infrastructure investment will be required, she said.