India's startup ecosystem is a storm of innovation, dreams, and challenges. While the ecosystem has recognised a boom of 1.52 lakh startups under the Startup India initiative by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT). But not every startup has a happy ending and hence, as per the government, 5063 new ventures — about 3.3% — have been marked as closed. This was shared by Minister of State in the Commerce Ministry, Jitin Prasada in a written Lok Sabha reply.

According to the data recorded as per December 5, 2024, Maharashtra topped the list of closures with 929 startups shutting down, followed by Karnataka (644), Delhi (593), Uttar Pradesh (487), and Telangana (301). These closures reflect the challenges startups face despite government support.

On the brighter side, startups have created over 16.6 lakh direct jobs across 55+ industries as of October 2024. IT services led the job creation spree with 2.04 lakh jobs, followed by healthcare and 1.47 lakh in healthcare and life sciences, 90414 in education, and 88468 in food and beverage.

Meanwhile, MSMEs have also faced obstacles. Since July 2020, 61469 units have shut down, including over 60,000 micro-enterprises. Alarmingly, over 12,000 MSMEs shut shop in just the last four months.

Despite these setbacks, India’s startup landscape remains sturdy, with every failure adding a valuable lesson to the entrepreneurial playbook.

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