The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) on Wednesday launched the second cohort of SAMRIDH. Secretary, MeitY S. Krishnan, launched the programme. It is a part of the 100-day agenda of the Government of India to select and support 125 startups through potential accelerators so as to achieve the target of nurturing 300 startups. The interested accelerator may apply for 2nd cohort of SAMRIDH, MeitY in a statement on Thursday
The ministry said it is working for the growth of India’s software product industry under the National Policy on Software Products (NPSP)-2019. Indian software product industry including startups are being supported through various programmes such as centers of excellence (CoEs),technology incubation and development of entrepreneurs (TIDE) programme, Next Generation Incubation Scheme (NGIS), ICT Grand Challenges, Gen-Next Support for Innovative Startups (GENESIS), etc, the ministry said.
About SAMRIDH: Bolstering Indian Software Startups
SAMRIDH is a flagship programme of MeitY for startups acceleration under National Policy on Software Products–2019. The SAMRIDH programme, launched in August 2021 aims to support 300 software product startups with outlay of ₹99 crore over a period of 4 years. SAMRIDH is being implemented through potential and established accelerators across India which provide services like making products market fit, business plan, investor connect and international expansion to startups plus matching funding upto ₹40 lakh by MeitY. The scheme is being implemented by MeitY Start-up Hub (MSH), Digital India Corporation (DIC).Diverse Accelerator Network for SAMRIDH
In the first cohort of SAMRIDH, 22 accelerators from 12 states were selected through open calls for proposals. List of accelerators compromises of government supported organizations, academic institutions, private sector and early-stage start-up funding platforms. These accelerators then select 5-10 startups each in the focused areas of health-tech, ed-tech, agri-tech, consumer-tech, fin-tech, Software as a service (SaaS), and sustainability through a multi-level screening process.
