Under the Startup India initiative, the union government has recognised more than 55,200 startups during Financial Year 2025-26, the highest number of startups recognized in a single year since the launch initiative in 2016.
The number of startups recognised by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade in FY26 went up by 51 per cent year-on-year as against about 36,500 such recognitions in the previous fiscal, according to a release from the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
With the additions in FY26, the number of recognised startups in India has crossed 2.23 lakh as on March 31 2026. They have cumulatively generated about 23.36 lakh direct jobs.
Meanwhile, Maharashtra led the way in terms of the number of startups recognised with more than 38,660 such companies in the state. Karnataka (22,600), Uttar Pradesh (21,960), and Delhi(21,120) were among other major hubs.
Interestingly nearly half or 1.07 lakh of the recognized startups have at least one woman director or partner.
Meanwhile, the release also mentioned that under the Fund of Funds for Startups (FFS), more than ₹7,000 crore has been disbursed to over 135 Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs) by the end of FY 2025-26, which have further invested more than ₹26,900 crore in over 1,420 startups.
“Building on this, the Government has notified Startup India Fund of Funds 2.0 with a corpus of ₹10,000 crore. In addition, by the end of FY 26, more than 410 loans amounting to over ₹1,250 crore have been guaranteed.” it said.
The release also mentioned that Indian startups have led to an increase in intellectual property generation, with more than 19,400 patent applications filed by startups as of March 2026. Patent filings increased from over 2,850 in FY 2024-25 to more than 4,480 in FY 2025-26.