Silicon Valley bigwigs descend on the Indian capital for Startup India, eye big ticket announcements

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Startup India’ initiative kick-started at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi, and Silicon Valley bigwigs hope on big tickets announcements by the prime minister.

With the Startup India plan, Modi wants to have a Silicon Valley-type environment in India, giving wings to entrepreneurial dreams of Indians and boosting innovation and employment.

Bigwigs like Masayoshi Son, founder and CEO SoftBank; Travis Kalanick, founder of Uber; and Adam Neumann, founder of WeWork are in Delhi and interacting with startup owners and entrepreneurs on future actions and growth of startups in India.

Modi is expected to announce a roadmap and policies for startups in India.

“We feel a lot of startups fail and so ease of starting and shutting down a company is very important and then the ease of raising money is crucial to success of startups," Venkatesh Shukla, president of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), told ET.