<p>Bengaluru: The <a href="https://www.deccanherald.com/tags/karnataka-news">Karnataka</a> government rewarded 146 startups that have bagged grants under the state-run ELEVATE programme on Saturday. </p><p>These startups include 103 winners under ELEVATE 2025, 33 under ELEVATE Unnati (for SC/ST entrepreneurs) and 10 under ELEVATE Minorities. They will get a total committed grant of Rs 38.85 crore. </p><p>ELEVATE provides a one-time grant-in-aid of up to Rs 50 lakh to startups. In addition, they are given mentoring and incubation support at subsidized rates at government-supported centres to help with product development and validation.</p><p>Since its launch in 2017, the ELEVATE programme has disbursed Rs 287.85 crore as grant-in-aid to 1,230 start-ups across Karnataka. Of these, 37 per cent are from beyond Bengaluru, while 28 per cent are led by women entrepreneurs, the IT/BT department said. </p>.Why startup failures don’t tell the full jobs story in India.<p>In the 2025 batch, 43 per cent of the startups are women-led and 43 per cent are located outside Bengaluru. Their sectors include agritech, consumer electronics, healthcare, edtech and so on. </p><p>Speaking at the event, IT/BT Minister Priyank Kharge urged entrepreneurs not to be discouraged by the hurdles of starting up. </p><p>Referring to Karnataka's role in India's startup journey, Priyank said: "As India marks 10 years of the Startup India movement, this is where it all began. This is where success stories are being built."</p><p><strong>'Began with a problem'</strong></p><p>Sharing her entrepreneurial journey, deep-tech waste management firm TrashCon founder Nivedha RM said she started when she was 22 without a formal background in business or technology.</p><p>She said she started working directly out of dump sites to understand the reality of India's waste crisis. “I didn’t begin with a business plan. I began with a problem—unsegregated waste being burnt on our streets and harming millions,” she said, according to a release. </p><p>TrashCon was funded under ELEVATE in 2017. Today, TrashCon is a Rs 400-crore company with large-scale waste processing and recycling solutions deployed across multiple Indian states and international markets, the release said. "The ecosystem believed in me when I was just a young engineer with an idea,” Nivedha said. </p>
<p>Bengaluru: The <a href="https://www.deccanherald.com/tags/karnataka-news">Karnataka</a> government rewarded 146 startups that have bagged grants under the state-run ELEVATE programme on Saturday. </p><p>These startups include 103 winners under ELEVATE 2025, 33 under ELEVATE Unnati (for SC/ST entrepreneurs) and 10 under ELEVATE Minorities. They will get a total committed grant of Rs 38.85 crore. </p><p>ELEVATE provides a one-time grant-in-aid of up to Rs 50 lakh to startups. In addition, they are given mentoring and incubation support at subsidized rates at government-supported centres to help with product development and validation.</p><p>Since its launch in 2017, the ELEVATE programme has disbursed Rs 287.85 crore as grant-in-aid to 1,230 start-ups across Karnataka. Of these, 37 per cent are from beyond Bengaluru, while 28 per cent are led by women entrepreneurs, the IT/BT department said. </p>.Why startup failures don’t tell the full jobs story in India.<p>In the 2025 batch, 43 per cent of the startups are women-led and 43 per cent are located outside Bengaluru. Their sectors include agritech, consumer electronics, healthcare, edtech and so on. </p><p>Speaking at the event, IT/BT Minister Priyank Kharge urged entrepreneurs not to be discouraged by the hurdles of starting up. </p><p>Referring to Karnataka's role in India's startup journey, Priyank said: "As India marks 10 years of the Startup India movement, this is where it all began. This is where success stories are being built."</p><p><strong>'Began with a problem'</strong></p><p>Sharing her entrepreneurial journey, deep-tech waste management firm TrashCon founder Nivedha RM said she started when she was 22 without a formal background in business or technology.</p><p>She said she started working directly out of dump sites to understand the reality of India's waste crisis. “I didn’t begin with a business plan. I began with a problem—unsegregated waste being burnt on our streets and harming millions,” she said, according to a release. </p><p>TrashCon was funded under ELEVATE in 2017. Today, TrashCon is a Rs 400-crore company with large-scale waste processing and recycling solutions deployed across multiple Indian states and international markets, the release said. "The ecosystem believed in me when I was just a young engineer with an idea,” Nivedha said. </p>
