Karnataka Launches 2025-30 Startup Policy, Earmarks Rs 570.7 Cr

• 20 Jan 2026
• TM Team
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Karnataka officially launched its Startup Policy for 2025-2030, setting out a five-year roadmap.The policy, cleared by the state government in November, has an outlay of Rs 570.68 crore and targets the creation of 25,000 new startups by 2030, including at least 10,000 from regions outside the state capital Bengaluru, officials said.

As part of the rollout, the government announced two key funding initiatives: ‘ELEVATE NxT,’ a flagship deeptech programme with an allocation of Rs 150 crore, and a Rs 75 crore Beyond Bengaluru Cluster Seed Fund aimed at boosting startups in non-metro innovation hubs.

“Deep tech will define the next decade of economic growth, and Karnataka intends to lead that transition,” the state’s IT and biotechnology minister Priyank Kharge said at a felicitation event in Bengaluru held as part of National Startup Month.

The new startup policy is anchored on seven pillars, including funding, incubation infrastructure, skill development, market access, international collaboration, inclusion and regulatory facilitation. Under the “Government First” initiative, eligible startups will also get the opportunity to pilot and sell solutions directly to the Karnataka government as their first customer, officials said.

The ‘ELEVATE NxT’ programme, launched under the state’s Local Economy Accelerator Program (LEAP), will provide grant-in-aid support of up to Rs 1 crore per startup through a milestone-based funding model. The initiative is open to deeptech startups across India and will focus on areas including AI and machine learning, internet of things, blockchain, robotics, biotech, quantum computing, cybersecurity, green energy and space technology.

The Beyond Bengaluru Cluster Seed Fund, with a total corpus of Rs 75 crore, includes a Rs 20 crore commitment from the state government, with the remainder to be mobilised from institutional and private investors. Phase I will focus on Mysuru, Mangaluru and Hubballi-Dharwad, with additional clusters to be added later

The fund will make equity and equity-linked investments starting from Rs 50 lakh per startup, capped at 10 per cent of the fund’s investable corpus per investment, in line with market regulations. Eligible companies must be government-registered startups operating in sectors such as IT, electronics and semiconductors, biotechnology and animation and gaming.

The fund will be managed by Karnataka Asset Management Company in collaboration with the Karnataka Digital Economy Mission, with the state expecting it to spur job creation, exports and startup density beyond Bengaluru.

At the same event, the state government also recognised 146 startups under the ELEVATE 2025 programme, committing total grants of Rs 38.85 crore. The winners included 103 startups under ELEVATE 2025, 33 under ELEVATE Unnati and 10 under the ELEVATE Minorities category.