The Union Minister of State for Electronics and IT, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, on Sunday said he will hold a meeting with the startup Founders and CEOs next week to see how the government can help them during the crisis. This was after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) in the US sent shockwaves across the globe and left the Indian startup ecosystem worried.
SVB collapse is going to impact several startups in the country which have exposure to its investments and have parked their funds in the bank.
"The SVB Financial closure is certainly disrupting startups across the world. Startups are an important part of the Indian Economy. I will meet wth Indian Startups this week to understand their impact on them and how the government can help during this crisis," Chandrasekhar said in a tweet.
According to recent data by global software-as-a-service (SaaS)-based market intelligence platform Tracxn, SVB had exposure in at least 21 startups in India although it did not reveal the size of the investment in these startups.
Top venture capitalist (VC) firms have also issued a joint statement showing concern on the collapse of SVB, one of the largest US banks serving the global startup community.
According to reports, the Santa Clara bank helped more than 2,500 venture capital firms, including Lightspeed, Bain Capital and Insight Partners.
On Friday, the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) got control of the bank's $175 billion in customer deposits.
This also pushed the US-based technology startup accelerator Y Combinator, which has invested in thousands of startups, including at least 200 from India, to write a petition to US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and others, asking them to prevent further shockwaves that could lead to job cuts and over 1,00,000 workers and global financial crisis.
The petition written by Garry Tan, CEO and President of Y Combinator, was signed by over 1,200 CEOs and founders representing over 56,000 employees.
With inputs from IANS
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