• National Start-up Day 2026 marks the completion of 10 years of Start-up India.

Background:
Launch: Startup India, a transformative initiative led by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry (MoC&I) was launched in 2016.
Declaration: In 2022, the Government of India (GoI) declared January 16 as National Startup Day to celebrate the nation’s stride in promoting a robust and inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystem.
2026 Events:
Event: On the occasion of National Startup Day 2026 celebrations, Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi addressed the startup founders, innovators, and young entrepreneurs programme held at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi, Delhi.

• During the event, DPIIT unveiled the results of the 5th edition of the National Startup Awards (NSA 5.0) and SRF 5.0, two flagship initiatives under the Startup India programme.

NSA 5.0: The awards spread across 20 categories recognise startups from Tier-I and Tier-III cities, covering deep-tech innovation and emerging sectors.
SRF 5.0: The current edition has evaluated the performance of 34 States and UTs in enabling startup growth on the ground level, across 6 reform areas and 19 clearly defined action points, covering policy and institutional support, physical and digital infrastructure, access to funding , market access and linkages, capacity building, among others.