Union Minister for Commerce and Industry, Piyush Goyal launched the US Startup SETU – Supporting Entrepreneurs in Transformation and Upskilling programme in the Bay Area of San Francisco, US. This new initiative is aimed at connecting startups in India to US-based investors, start-up ecosystem leaders, mentors. Besides offering funding support, SETU focuses on providing mentorship, assistance, upskilling and other opportunities to Indian startups from the investors and successful entrepreneur based out of US. Bay Area is popularly known s Silicon Valley all over the world.
SETU is designed to break the geographical barriers between mentors based in US, who are willing to invest in entrepreneurship and sunrise startups in India. The interaction will be supported through the mentorship portal under the Startup India initiative MAARG (Mentorship, Advisory, Assistance, Resilience, and Growth) program, which is a single-stop solution finder for startups in India. The portal has been developed with the idea to be accessible from every corner of the country to connect with a mentor. A mentor will offer human intelligence in guiding the startups. More than 200 mentors have been successfully on-boarded on MAARG across the globe, explained a press release from Press Information Bureau (PIB).
“One of the key takeaways is that the Bay Area is very bullish on India, very excited about the potential that India and Indian startups and Indian businesses have to offer. There were suggestions about mentorship. We’ve launched the SETU programme where we are looking at supporting entrepreneurs through transformation and upskilling intiatives. We’re also looking at a programme that the startup advisory council had initiated in India in which mentorship is being initiated particularly in tier-2, tier-3 and tier-4 towns and remoter areas. Lot of good suggestions have been brought to the table,” said Piyush Goyal after launching US Startup SETU.