6 Step Guide To Register Start-Up In India

Unlock the potential of your start-up with a 6-step guide to registering in India. Explore eligibility criteria, necessary documents, and the DPIIT recognition process.

WANT TO REGISTER YOUR START-UP IN INDIA-HERE ARE THE 6 STEPS TO GUIDE YOU

We have a million problems, but at the same time we have over a billion minds: Prime Minister Narendra Modi. To enable India a start-up hub, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has coined a new slogan ‘Start-up India, stand up India‘ during his Independence speech on 15^th August, 2015 and started a Start-up India initiative of the Government of India to recognize and promote start-ups. Through this slogan, Narendra Modi indicated towards initiating a mechanism whereby the unemployed youth of backward regions could turn them into job creators rather than job seekers.

In order to help the start-ups and entrepreneurs, an online platform Start-up India Portal has been launched on 16^th January, 2016. This portal brings startups, investors, incubators under one roof and allowing them to discover and collaborate with each other. This portal is one of the programs mandated under the Start-up India Initiative. According to the data available on the platform, 97,394 DPIIT recognized start-ups are currently registered on the portal.

After the launch of Start-up India Scheme, there has been an incredible increase in the number of start-up registration due to various benefits and reliefs like tax exemptions, Patent Application and protection towards Intellectual Property Rights, relaxation in public procurement norms, easy winding up of Company etc. provided by the government from time to time. Thus, we felt the need to guide you on the procedural aspects, documents required to register start-up under the Start-up India and circumstances where the status of start-up will cease.

Ingredients of Eligibility for Recognitions as a Start-up

An entity shall be considered as a Start-up:

1. If it is incorporated as a Private Limited Company or registered Partnership Firm or a Limited Liability Partnership (LLP) in India;
2. Up to 10 years from the date of its incorporation/registration;
3. If its turnover for any of the financial years since incorporation/registration has not been exceeded INR 100 Crores; and
4. If it is working towards innovation, development or improvement of products or processes or services, or if it is a scalable business model with a high potential of employment generation or wealth creation.

Documents required for Registration under Start-up India

• Incorporation/Registration Certificate of the entity;
• Pan Card of the Entity;
• Authorization letter and Identity proof of the authorized representative of the company, LLP or partnership firm;
• A brief about Company’s Business Model/Products/Services;
• Patent and trademark details, if any;
• Link of Website/Video/Patent;
• List of awards or certificates of recognition, if any;
• Any other relevant documents

Steps involved in Start-up India Registration

STEP 1: INCORPORATE YOUR BUSINESS

Before proceed with the Start-up India registration, first you need to register your business either as a Private Limited Company under the Companies Act, 2013 or Limited Liability Partnership (LLP) under the Limited Liability Partnership Act, 2008 or Partnership firm under the Indian Partnership Act, 1932. For registering your business, you are required to follow the procedures as specified in the respective acts.

STEP 2: REGISTER WITH START-UP INDIA

In the second step, you are required to create an account by registering your firm or Company or LLP as a start-up by visiting the Start-up website and click on the ‘Register’ button. Thereafter, you are required to fill the necessary details like Name, Email id and Mobile No. of the authorized representative of the entity and password for login purpose.

After filing the required details, you are required to click on the ‘Register’ button, thereafter you will receive an OTP on your email id and after entering the OTP, you are required to click on the submit button. Now, your profile is created on the Start-up India.

Post registering your entity on the platform, you are required to login in your account by entering the email id and Password which was entered at the time of registration by clicking on ‘Login’ button.

After login on the portal, a dashboard will be opened which contains the following tab. You are required to enter all the necessary details in the different tabs:

1. About Start-up: Under this tab, you are required to mentioned the name of Start-up, stages of start-up (Ideation, Validation, Early Traction and Scaling), Entity/Company logo, brief information on your business and funding of start-up.
2. Contact Info: Under this tab, you are required to mention the email id and mobile, state and city in which the entity is registered, website link and mobile app link (if any).
3. Category: Under this tab, you are required to choose the industry, sector and services to which the start-up belong, nature of the start-up like private limited company, LLP or firm, Corporate Identification Number (applicable in case the start-up is a private Limited Company) and Udyog Aadhaar registration Number (applicable in case of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises).
4. Your Interest: Under this last tab, you are required to select the options in which the entity is interested such as Investors, Incubators, other start-ups, Mentors and Accelerators.

Note: For your reference, we have discussed below the different stages of Start-up:

• Ideation: This is the very first stage of a start-up where the entrepreneur has an idea and is working on bringing it into reality. This is the stage where the funding requirement is small.
• Validation: This is the second stage and is typically the first year of the start-up. In this stage, the start-up validates the demand of its product or services and gain its first customers.
• Early Traction: This stage is used to measure where the business is headed. This stage calculates the market share in the industry and key performance indicators such as customer satisfaction, app downloads etc.
• Scaling: This is the last stage in which the start-up takes an innovative idea and experiencing a fast rate of growth, increase in revenue and profits. In this stage, the start-up gaining the market share of existing players.

After entering the details in all stages, you are required to click on ‘Save profile’ button and after clicking on it, your profile gets saved on the portal.

STEP 3: APPLICATION WITH DEPARTMENT FOR PROMOTION OF INDUSTRY AND INTERNAL TRADE (DPIIT) RECOGNITION

After completing the second step, you are required to click on ‘DPIIT Recognition’ button, the portal will direct you to Recognition application detail.

In the application form, you are required to click on ‘View details’ under the tab User details. After clicking on it, the portal will direct you to Start-up Recognition Form where you are required to fill the following section of the form by clicking on plus sign:

1. Entity Details: Under this section, you are required to mention the nature of entity, Industry, Sector, CIN, Name of Entity, Date of Incorporation/Registration etc.
2. Full Address (Office): Under this section, you are required to mention the complete address of the entity.
3. Authorized Representative Details: Under this section, the details of the person who is acting as authorized representative of the entity for completing the formalities required for obtaining the start-up India registration. It contains the details like Name, Designation, Mobile No. and Email id of the authorized representative.
4. Director(s)/Partners Details: Under this section, you are required to mention the details of all Directors/Partners like Name, DIN/DPIN, Gender, Mobile No., Address and Email id.
5. Information Required: This is the most important section of the form where you are required to mention the number of employees (including founders), select the stage of start-up, bifurcate the product or service or process in the category of Innovation or Improvement and confirm on any funding raised by the start-up.
6. Start-up Activities: This is the last section of the form where you are required to describe the problem prevailing in the industry the start-up is solving, the solution of the problem, the uniqueness of the solution etc.

STEP 4: SELF CERTIFICATION

After completing the third step, you are required to certify that the entity fulfills the necessary criteria for registering as a Start-up i.e., the entity is a Private limited company, LLP or a registered partnership firm and the turnover of the entity is not exceeding INR 100 crore.

STEP 5: UPLOADING OF DOCUMENTS

This is last step of the start-up registration where you are required to attach all the necessary documents.

After completing the aforesaid steps, you are required to accept the terms and conditions and thereafter click on the ‘Submit’ button for submitting the form with DPIIT.

STEP 6: GET THE RECOGNITION NUMBER

After submission of application, DPIIT will take 72-96 hours to go through the application and documents and if they are satisfied with the provided documents, the DPIIT will issue a recognition number for startup. The certificate can be downloaded by clicking on ‘DPIIT Recognition’ button and thereafter clicking on ‘View Certificate’ button.

However, in case where the DPIIT raised a query or rejecting the application, the entity can submit their replies up to 3 times with the DPIIT.

Cessation of status of start-up

An entity would cease to be a ‘Start-up’ upon expiry of:

• Up to 7 years from the date of incorporation/registration; however, in case of Start-ups engaged in the biotechnology sector, the period shall be up to 10 years from the date of incorporation/registration;

OR

• If its turnover for any of the financial years exceeded INR 25 crore.