Bihar Startup Yatra to Identify and Support 10,000 New Startups
The Bihar Startup Yatra is a 45-day campaign that is meant to indentify and support over 10,000 new startups across Bihar. It has been launched by the Department of Industries as an initiative to offer direct support to students, women, artisans, and local level entrepreneurs who are generally left out of mainstream startup ecosystems.
This will be done to promote overall holistic economic development of Bihar where ideas and startups don’t only come from big cities like Patna etc. but from each and every corner of Bihar.
We have covered everything about the Bihar Startup Yatra in this article including the objectives of the campaign, the process of identifying 1 lakh ideas and supporting over 10,000 of them to become startups, important highlights of the 38-district yatra, and what happens next. You can use the following Table of Contents to navigate as per your preference:
Table of Contents
What is the Bihar Startup Yatra?
The Bihar Startup Yatra is a state-wide initiative aimed at identifying 1 lakh business ideas from across all 38 districts of Bihar. Out of these, 10,000 promising ideas will be selected and supported to become successful startups.
The campaign is especially for students, women, farmers, and first-time entrepreneurs. Selected ideas will receive proper mentorship, training, and seed funding of up to ₹10 lakh.
What makes it one of the most ambitious startup project of Bihar is that a special startup bus will be travelling to each district to collect the ideas and guide the founders.
It is aimed at hunting raw and early-stage ideas directly from the youth of Bihar. There will be informative events, pitch sessions, and workshops in each district which will connect the founders with mentors, investors and incubation centres.
Bihar’s Startup Culture Gains Momentum
According to Industries Minister Nitish Mishra, Bihar’s registered startups have nearly tripled from 586 in 2024 to 1,522 in mid-2025. In recent Startup Mahakumbh 2025, three startups from Bihar were also selected. This positive trend in Bihar’s startup culture is being encouraged even further with the Bihar Startup Yatra which has been launched under the Startup Bihar Kraanti. This is indeed a kind of revolution for a state like Bihar, where people have traditionally preferred stable jobs.
To build on this momentum, the state has revived the Bihar Innovation Board. The further policy decisions will be planned using the insights from this Startup Yatra. Apart from this, Nitish Mishra also asked to suggest reforms and new schemes throughout the journey while he was addressing the public at the launch of the Bihar Ideas Festival. It is a rare open-door approach that is expected to prove very fruitful for Bihar. Such reforms are much-welcomed.
How Bihar Startup Yatra Supports Founders
If your idea is selected during the yatra, you will get incubation and mentorship through CIMP (Chandragupt Institute of Management Patna) and its startup wing called BIIF (Business Incubation and Innovation Foundation). Experts will help in improving the idea, build a professional team, and make a proper business plan.
Along with guidance, financial help is also available under the Bihar Startup Policy 2022. This includes:
- Seed funding (initial money to start your business)
- Investor linkages (connections with people who can fund your startup further)
To ensure this initiative reaches every corner of Bihar, the Startup yatra will also be supported by a strong local network of :
- College entrepreneurship cells
- District Industries Centres (DICs)
- MSME offices
- KVIC (Khadi and Village Industries Commission)
Apart from governmental and academic support, at least 50 high-potential startups will be promoted by YourStory under its Bharat Project. This will give them national reach and attract investors, partners, and media. This is your opportunity to work for your dream project!
Decentralising Bihar’s Startup Growth
As CIMP’s Dr. Rana Singh said, “We are not chasing unicorns – we are chasing resilience and regional growth.” This rightly encapsulates the main goal of Bihar’s “Startup Kraanti”. It is not aimed at chasing billion dollar companies rather to support meaningful and sustainable ventures that solve real problems in Bihar.
By travelling locally through a bus, the Bihar Startup Yatra is directly attempting on decentralizing the innovation and entrepreneurial energy has remained limited to cities like Patna. Bihar preform well in agriculture, construction, and other service-based sectors but it lacked a strong startup ecosystem. So with this we can expect the conditions to change. The ease of doing businesses in Bihar was ranked as one of the lowest in Bihar. Hopefully, with this growing startup culture, we will be able to see concrete changes in Bihar’s condition.
Public-Private-Academic Partnership
One of the most powerful things about the Bihar Startup Yatra is how different institutions are working together to push for the same goal. The government, private media platforms, and educational institutes all have decided to come on the same page.
This combined Public-Private-Academic partnership has brought what Bihar never had before. It is creating a proper system that is just built to help new startups thrive.
As Kumod Kumar, CEO of CIMP-BIIF and President of TiE Patna, rightly said, “We’ve always had talent and ideas in Bihar. What we lacked was a platform to help them grow.” But now Bihar has a system! CIMP is helping with training and startup incubation, the government is giving financial support, and YourStory is helping these startups gain reach from all over the national.
Conclusion
The Bihar Startup Yatra is very different from any other government program. It’s a strong message that Bihar is now serious about building a strong startup culture with new ideas, local businesses, and support for people who want to start something of their own.
If you want to share your startup idea and participate in the Bihar Startup Yatra, you just need to visit the place where the startup bus arrives in your district. At each stop, local events are organised where you can pitch your idea, attend mentorship sessions, and get feedback from the experts.
I’m a final-year engineering student with a deep interest in current affairs, politics, and international issues. Writing news is my part-time passion, where I focus on sharing credible and well-researched stories. Every article I publish is backed by verified sources and multiple levels of fact-checking to ensure accuracy and trustworthiness.
