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Bharat Web3 Association, which facilitates collaboration between regulatory bodies and the Web3 ecosystem, has released a report showcasing over 400 Web3 innovators shaping India’s digital landscape.
The report titled “India’s Web3 Revolution: A Compendium of Web3 Firms Led by Indian Innovators” showcases 421 companies and highlights the diversity and innovation driving India’s digital economy.
“Through this report, we hope to quantify and bring attention to the start-ups contributing to the silent Web3 revolution in India, while also serving as a valuable resource for investors, entrepreneurs, and policymakers wanting to know more about the potential of Web3 in India,” said Dilip Chenoy, Chairperson, Bharat Web3 Association (BWA).
Technology startups in India have grown significantly to about 31,000 in 2023 from around 2,000 in 2014. According to NASSCOM, a trade association of India’s IT industry, the sector witnessed the creation of about 1000 new tech startups in 2023.
The BWA report states that blockchain services solutions have emerged as the Web3 vertical, with the highest concentration of startups operating within it, with 79 startups engaged in developing blockchain-related solutions for various industries. This is followed by digital asset exchanges and blockchain infrastructure companies, which occupy second and third positions, respectively. Decentralized finance and gaming & entertainment complete the top five verticals within the Web3 sector.
The report also states that India’s diverse Web3 ecosystem specializes in blockchain development, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), the metaverse, gaming, and decentralized finance (DeFi).
“Recognizing the rich diversity within the Web3 sector and its potential impact on India’s digital future, our report aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the hundreds of start-ups operating in this burgeoning space, working in segments such as DeFi, blockchain solutions and infrastructure, asset tokenization, metaverse, gaming, media, and Web3 advisory services, among others,” Chenoy added.
India boosts startup ecosystem
The BWA report comes a few months after India’s finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, abolished the ‘angel tax’ to bolster entrepreneurial spirit and support innovation. The angel tax treats investments received by startups from external investors as ‘income from other sources’ and levies a 30% taxation on them. Often short of funds, startups tend to lose money as angel tax requires them to share a significant part of the investment towards paying taxes.
The Modi-led Indian government plans to boost employment and upskill the workforce, startups, and small businesses in the current financial year that ends in March 2025.
“I have witnessed first hand the wide range of technological innovations that have taken place in the country over the recent years, with blockchain tech and Web3 in particular being a key element in these developments,” S Krishnan, Secretary at the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology, said in the BWA report’s foreword.
“Our policies and initiatives aim to empower innovators and entrepreneurs, providing them with the tools necessary to explore and expand new frontiers. The rise of Web3 technologies provides us with the opportunity to develop use cases that serve the public good through enhanced transparency while offering us a unique opportunity to foster a more inclusive digital economy,” Krishnan added.
As of October this year, Indian startups have reportedly raised close to $10 billion in funding, putting them on track to exceed the $10.5 billion raised in total funding throughout the previous year.
In November, Google’s (NASDAQ: GOOGL) philanthropic arm, Google.org, announced a $1 million grant to the artificial intelligence (AI) startup Karya, which creates job opportunities in rural areas in exchange for feedback to enhance the language capabilities of local AI models. Karya will also develop a multilingual AI chatbot to assist individuals with digital work.
The funding aims to create AI-driven economic opportunities for low-income communities globally, enabling people to access digital tasks related to artificial intelligence, such as data annotation and language-based AI training.
Watch: India posed to become leaders in Web3
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