Lucknow, is now not just limited to nazakat and nafazat but it is also at the same time famous for prestigious institutions like IITs, IIMs etc which are competing with others at national and international levels. The city has indeed transformed itself to a mini metro place with presence of metro train, an international cricket stadium, film city, swanky malls, high rise buildings and much more have come up in the recent past. Uttar Pradesh, the third largest economy of India, contributes 8.4percent to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Indeed, the friendly industrial policy of the state has laid out a roadmap, which involves creating land banks, promoting country-specific industrial parks to attract Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and helping set up private industrial parks around Lucknow-Kanpur, Kanpur-Allahabad and Varanasi-Allahabad zones. Such growth has also favored startups as investors have started taking Lucknow as a potential city where innovations are rapidly taking place.

Being a Lucknowite, I have seen the city grow in leaps and bounds. Right from attaining my basic education to grabbing my first job as an intern and then giving wings to my career and now as an entrepreneur, Lucknow indeed offers innumerable growth opportunities. Being a Tier II city, Lucknow is relatively an easy place to undergo litmus test time and again before one can plan and launch with improvisation. Continuous and honest market feedbacks and learnings from the city also helps in a great way. Lucknow has grown multifold in past one decade.We have seen the emergence of lot of startups from food to education, health care to wellness and on-demand logistics, Ecommerce has made its way in all sectors of life. The recent announcement of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to establish the largest business incubator in the country at Lucknow has once again necessitated the need for a focus on promoting startup culture. The state government plans to promote all the small and medium scale start-ups that will help them to establish themselves in this challenging and competitive world. The state government has also increased the

budgetary allocation for startups with the incubator center coming up at Lucknow, this amount will now increase to Rs 4,000 crore from the earlier Rs 1000 crore. Not only this, under the state government’s policy of ‘One district, one product’ the govt plans to identify one product from each district which will be used for export. Giving a major boost to employability, 75 youths will be selected from 75 districts who will come up with outstanding project.

Being a Tier II city, Lucknow is relatively an easy place to undergo litmus test time and again before one can plan and launch with improvisation

It is also proposed that an incubator cell in Lucknow will be constructed on a 40 acre space near the Lucknow airport. This incubator will support companies registered in Uttar Pradesh. Eyeing these developments, a couple of private incubators, accelerators & fund raising establishments are setting up their base in Lucknow too! Some prominent brands like Lucknow Angel Network, VCats UP and non-profit organizations like TiE Lucknow are helping investors, mentors and startups to shake their hands. I strongly believe that since local startups have a deep connection with the city, they tend to understand the city’s problems and offer all probable solutions. And having said that, many entrepreneurs are passionately bringing about winds of change for the love of this city. With adequate government support and MNC’s approaching, Lucknow is embracing innovation and entrepreneurship rapidly

Today, the enterprising students are keen on starting and building companies from their hometowns and not migrating to the big cities. Multiple angel and early-stage funds are focusing on meeting with entrepreneurs from these cities via events to foster overall growth and promote the ecosystem. Recently, a startup conclave was organized in Lucknow for first time. The event drew much applause and saw industry leaders and stakeholders coming together to build a strong startup environment. More than 150 investors from across the country attended the event. The conclave helped to bring the spotlight on Uttar Pradesh thriving startup ecosystem. Around 50+ startups came from UP only, there were investors who belonged to the cities like Allahabad, Kanpur, Jhansi, Varanasi and Lucknow. This extremely successful witnessed in raising Rs 5Cr from investors. Indeed, it proved a brilliant platform of exposure to the entrepreneurs and also gave VCs a great viewpoint of the rising business potential of the state capital.

In the end, I would just like to add, to speed up the startup ecosystem in Tier-II cities, the following ingredients are required in right mix.

 StartUp Incubation centers like Lucknow Angel Network which functions with affordable co-working spaces
 Investor Awareness programs various companies (to educate startup funding and an alternate high risk - high return) investment tool
 StartUp Expo-Event hosting(for Investor participation) & College Events
 Co-Founders match making (Mergers & Acquisitions)

The presence of incubators, optimum workplaces, investors and technology support are among the most important requisites for startups to thrive and perform.