Shweta Rajpal Kohli, a former employee of venture capital firm Peak XV Partners, on Thursday, launched Startup Policy Forum (SPF) to foster constructive collaboration between founders, policymakers, and regulators.
In the initial phase, the forum will limit its members to 100 select startups and may eventually increase its membership count. It already includes prominent startups such as Razorpay, Cred, Pine Labs, Groww, Acko, Oyo, Swiggy, Practo, Dream11, Cars24, Cardekho, CureFoods, Livspace, Ixigo, Mobikwik, Jupiter, OneCard and Bluestone among its members.
These members are broadly divided across two categories—founding and strategic members. The founding members represent a group of India’s most successful and influential startup founders who are committed to collaborating closely with the government and regulators to drive change, Kohli, president and CEO of SPF, told Mint. She added that this group will play a crucial role in nation building and promoting other startups.
Strategic members
Strategic members may include other startup founders that fall between the mid-to-high growth stage categories. To be clear, the membership is not revenue or valuation driven. The forum will function as a representative body that will have a variety of sectors that matter to the new economy.
SPF has established four specialized councils to drive initiatives and target policy expertise—Fintech Policy Council (FPC), Consumer and Commerce Council (CACC), Emerging Tech & AI Council (ETAC), and New-Age Public Companies Council (NPCC). These councils will focus on critical areas within the startup ecosystem, collaborate closely with relevant regulators and stakeholders to address unique challenges and opportunities in each sector.
“India has become one of the most attractive global hubs for innovation thanks to the government’s steadfast focus on catalyzing the startup ecosystem and the macroeconomic stability provided by our world-class regulators,” said Kohli. She has over two decades of experience in media and public policy and has led teams at venture capital, technology, and media firms, including Peak XV Partners, Sequoia Capital India, Salesforce and Uber.
IPO surge
A surge of IPOs by new-age companies reflects the ecosystem’s maturity in terms of size, scale, and impact. With startups entering a high-growth phase, creating a favourable regulatory frameworks is crucial to fostering innovation and achieving global prominence, as per the statement. Other government initiatives including Startup India, Digital India, and the Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) have also laid a strong foundation for startups to innovate and flourish.
Meanwhile, SPF’s mission is to bridge the gap between startup founders and public policy makers. It aims to help shape the policy agenda for new age companies, to build a curated community of leading startups founders, and to position and promote Indian startups on a global stage.
The forum’s council also comprises other leading experts in public policy, legal affairs, taxation, policy research, communications, and marketing and it will have a data-driven problem solving approach and engage in cutting-edge public policy advocacy tailored to the needs of India’s new-age companies.
