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IT/BT Minister Priyank Kharge at the event.
Bengaluru: The Karnataka government rewarded 146 startups that have bagged grants under the state-run ELEVATE programme on Saturday.
These startups include 103 winners under ELEVATE 2025, 33 under ELEVATE Unnati (for SC/ST entrepreneurs) and 10 under ELEVATE Minorities. They will obtain a total committed grant of Rs 38.85 crore.
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 support with product development and validation.
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 stated.
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.
Speaking at the event, IT/BT Minister Priyank Kharge urged entrepreneurs not to be discouraged by the hurdles of starting up.
Referring to Karnataka’s role in India’s startup journey, Priyank stated: “As India marks 10 years of the Startup India relocatement, this is where it all launched. This is where success stories are being built.”
‘Began with a problem’
Sharing her entrepreneurial journey, deep-tech waste management firm TrashCon founder Nivedha RM stated she started when she was 22 without a formal background in business or technology.
She stated she started working directly out of dump sites to understand the reality of India’s waste crisis. “I didn’t launch with a business plan. I launched with a problem—unsegregated waste being burnt on our streets and harming millions,” she stated, according to a release.
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 stated. “The ecosystem believed in me when I was just a young engineer with an idea,” Nivedha stated.
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