As the Union Budget 2026-27 is set to be presented tomorrow, February 1, 2026, by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, India’s diverse entrepreneurial and industrial landscape is buzzing with anticipation. This budget arrives at a crucial time, as the country pushes forward with its Viksit Bharat ambitions amid global uncertainties, evolving priorities in manufacturing, digital innovation, and inclusive growth.
At Startup Success Stories, we go straight to the source, the builders, backers, and sector leaders shaping tomorrow’s economy. In 2026 Budget Expectations Unfiltered – Insights from Startups, Investors, VCs & Textiles, we’ve gathered direct, candid quotes from founders of startups, venture capitalists, angel investors, and key voices from the textiles and apparel sector.
These unfiltered perspectives highlight what matters most right now: from funding access and regulatory clarity for startups, to investment incentives and risk appetite for VCs and investors, and policy support for competitiveness, exports, and resilience in textiles. As the big day approaches, these voices offer a real-time snapshot of hopes, priorities, and practical ideas from those driving India’s growth engine.
Pulkit Arora, Director, CYK Hospitalities: “As we approach Budget 2026, the Food and Beverage industry is optimistic that the long-awaited structural alignment will take place. The restoration of Input Tax Credit, the recognition of the hospitality sector as an industry, and the simplification of the licensing process can significantly strengthen operational viability. The food companies will then be able to concentrate on quality, innovation, and consistency rather than dealing with inefficiencies.”
Simran Jeet Singh, Director, CYK Hospitalities: “From the perspective of expansion, brands are prepared for growth while the markets are prepared for consumption. Budget 2026 has the potential to unblock, quicken, and even more smoothly F&B expansion across the different parts of the city by providing clearer leasing frameworks, single-window approvals, as well as uniform commercial policies. Now is the time to make it possible to grow, accompanied by stability and predictability.”
- Ashish Bhatia, Founder & CEO at India Accelerator: “As we’re approaching the Union Budget, the startup ecosystem needs clear, execution-led reforms to unlock the next phase of growth. Despite India crossing 1.25 lakh DPIIT-registered startups, nearly two-thirds remain at seed and early-growth stages, where access to patient domestic capital continues to be constrained. Targeted incentives for angel investors, rationalisation of long-term capital gains, and greater clarity on taxation of unlisted shares can meaningfully improve capital flow into early-stage ventures.
For venture capital funds, policy stability and faster capital recycling are critical. Simplifying compliance for Category I and II AIFs, easing cross-border capital movement, and strengthening exit pathways through IPOs and strategic M&A can significantly enhance fund performance and reinvestment capacity. With startup funding witnessing a 30% year-on-year decline in 2024, restoring investor confidence must be a Budget priority.
Reducing regulatory friction is equally important. Founders and fund managers currently divert nearly 15–20% of leadership time toward compliance and regulatory processes. A growth-focused Budget that simplifies regulations, strengthens ease of doing business, and provides tax certainty especially for long-term capital, will be instrumental in strengthening India’s startup and venture capital landscape.”
- Paramdeep Singh, Founder of Long Tail Ventures, Investor & Startup Ecosystem Advisor: “For India’s startup and venture ecosystem, the Budget should be evaluated on how effectively it enables long-term capital formation over episodic incentives. The government has already laid a strong foundation through digital public infrastructure, supporting over 1.3 billion Aadhaar identities, 500 million-plus UPI users, and GST compliance across millions of enterprises. This has materially reduced friction for startups while formalising demand at population scale.
The next phase must focus on deepening access to patient domestic capital. India has over 1.1 lakh registered startups, yet only a limited proportion successfully transition from early funding to sustainable scale. Growth-stage companies continue to rely disproportionately on foreign capital, even as domestic pools such as insurance and pension funds manage assets exceeding ₹60 trillion. Enabling even a 2–3% allocation of this capital into venture and growth equity could meaningfully strengthen funding resilience.
Continued policy support is also essential for sectors with longer gestation cycles, including manufacturing, deep tech, and defence. Fintech startups building on public digital rails will benefit most from regulatory clarity, predictable tax treatment, and faster dispute resolution.
This Budget has the opportunity to reinforce India’s shift toward durable, disciplined, and long-term value creation.”
- Abhishek Sharma, CEO & Co-Founder at Fashinza: “Amid tariff pressures and shifting global sourcing dynamics, this Budget represents a crucial inflection point for India’s textile and apparel sector, a major employer and a key contributor to exports and economic growth. Enhancing cost competitiveness and policy predictability will be essential to sustain momentum and attract incremental global sourcing.
Rationalising import duties on essential raw materials and trims can reduce input cost volatility and improve production planning, working capital efficiency, and pricing stability particularly for export-oriented manufacturers operating on thin margins. Equally important is strengthening duty drawback mechanisms to help exporters offset embedded taxes and higher logistics costs relative to competing Asian markets.
At the mill and MSME level, greater clarity on tax structures, faster refunds, simplified compliance, and improved access to affordable working capital can unlock investments in modernisation, automation, and sustainability.
A balanced Budget that combines fiscal discipline with targeted industry support can accelerate manufacturing growth, create jobs, and reinforce India’s position as a reliable global sourcing hub.”
- Himanshu Gupta, Founder & CEO at Lawyered: “As India’s EV and mobility ecosystem enters its next phase of scale, the Union Budget must shift from adoption-led incentives to long-term competitiveness. EVs currently account for 6–7% of total vehicle sales, with electric two- and three-wheelers driving over 90% of current volumes. Achieving the 30% EV penetration target by 2030 will require sustained policy support for domestic manufacturing, innovation, and startup-led execution.
EV and mobility startups particularly across batteries, charging, fleet operations, and mobility platforms remain capital-intensive with longer gestation cycles. While India will need over USD 200 billion in cumulative EV and mobility investments by 2030, access to patient capital and operational efficiency remains uneven. The Budget should strengthen localisation incentives, expand credit support for EV startups, and rationalise GST on EV components and charging infrastructure.
Equally important is easing on-road compliance and enforcement. With EV fleets and shared mobility operators scaling rapidly, digital, transparent challan and dispute-resolution systems can significantly reduce downtime, improve fleet efficiency, and lower compliance friction for startups and drivers alike.
A forward-looking Budget that aligns climate goals with industrial policy, regulatory clarity, and compliance-led digitisation can position India as a global hub for sustainable and efficient mobility.”
Swati Jain, Director, The Banyan: “As India approaches the Union Budget 2026, it is important to recognise that early childhood education and corporate childcare are not peripheral welfare measures, but core economic enablers. For millions of working parents, particularly women professionals, access to reliable, high-quality preschool and day care services directly determines their ability to enter, remain, and grow within the workforce.
India’s aspirations of higher labour force participation, improved productivity, and inclusive growth cannot be achieved without strengthening the childcare ecosystem. Corporate day care facilities and professionally run preschools ease the dual burden faced by working families, reduce career interruptions, and enable organisations to retain skilled talent.
We urge policymakers to consider targeted measures in the 2026 Budget such as enhanced tax incentives for employer-supported childcare, simplified compliance norms, and increased investment in early learning infrastructure. Supporting this sector will not only benefit working parents but also ensure better developmental outcomes for children during their most formative years.
A future-ready India must invest early in the systems that allow parents to participate fully in the economy. Strengthening early childhood education is, ultimately, an investment in India’s long-term human capital and global competitiveness.”
Rajashri Sai, Founder & CEO, Impactree.ai: “As India navigates the complexities of global supply chain shifts, the Union Budget 2026 presents a pivotal opportunity to redefine the competitive edge of our MSME sector. Now more than ever, it is imperative that the budget focuses on strengthening climate finance infrastructure specifically for small and medium enterprises.
The bridge to this transition is technology. We hope to see the government incentivize digital ecosystems that help MSMEs translate their sustainability performance into financial credibility. By leveraging data-driven platforms, we can simplify the reporting process, allowing small businesses to unlock ‘green’ capital that was previously out of reach. This isn’t just about compliance; it is about building a ‘Green Credit’ framework where an enterprise’s social and environmental resilience becomes an asset on its balance sheet. The ask is to successfully democratize access to climate finance through technological intervention as it will help India build a growth model that is both resilient to global shocks and highly investable for the future. We look forward to a Budget that empowers MSMEs to be the vanguard of India’s sustainable industrial revolution.”
Vivek Shankaranarayanan, Co-founder, Impactree.ai: “While the progress India has made in building Digital Public Infrastructure and open data rails is commendable, the next frontier for the nation isn’t just about expanding access; it is about building Systems Intelligence on top of these foundations. India’s unique opportunity lies in the development of specialized Business Language Models.
We expect the Budget to incentivize an ecosystem where AI doesn’t exist in a vacuum but integrates deeply with DPI, existing enterprise stacks, and real-world operational data. The goal should be to create models that understand the nuances of Indian supply chains, MSME credit cycles, and environmental metrics. By focusing on these integrated stacks, we can move beyond ‘chatbots’ to ‘decision engines’ that translate physical and financial signals into scalable, actionable intelligence. If the Budget prioritizes the interoperability of open data rails with AI research, we can empower sectors like climate finance and sustainable manufacturing with durable economic value. We are looking for policy support that encourages the ‘Sovereign AI’ mission to prioritize verticalized intelligence—ensuring that India’s AI journey is not just about participation, but about architectural leadership in solving complex, ground-level challenges.”
Sai Pattabiram, Founder & MD, Zuppa: “The Indian drone industry is emerging from a critical phase of disruption—one that has fundamentally reshaped its dominant business model. With a sharper focus on indigenous component manufacturing, cybersecurity, and a growing recognition of drones as dual-use strategic assets, the sector is now at an inflection point. As we approach the Union Budget, we are hopeful of decisive policy support through Design-Linked Incentives, targeted PLI schemes, and export-focused incentives coupled with the lowering of barriers to export within the SCOMET regulations that can help Indian drone manufacturers scale with confidence. The post-disruption ecosystem is not only addressing India’s sovereign needs in defence, infrastructure, and security, but is also solving challenges faced by governments worldwide—resilient supply chains, secure systems, and trusted hardware. With the right fiscal and policy backing, India has a real opportunity to evolve into a credible global alternative to the Chinese drone supply chain, across both platforms and critical components. A future-ready Budget can accelerate this transition, enabling Indian deep-tech companies to compete globally while strengthening national security and technological self-reliance.”
Venkatesh Sai, Founder & Technical Director, Zuppa: “From a technology standpoint, the Union Budget 2026 can be transformative for India’s cyber-physical and drone ecosystem by recognising secure computing, real-time AI, and indigenous hardware as national priorities. As drones increasingly operate in sensitive, mission-critical environments, policy support must extend beyond assembly to deep-tech innovation—covering secure motherboards, real-time control computing, AI-driven autonomy, and cyber-resilient architectures. Incentives for design-first engineering, aerospace-grade manufacturing standards, and indigenous IP creation will allow Indian companies to build globally competitive systems from the ground up. We also look forward to frameworks that support dual-use technologies, enabling seamless innovation across defence, mobility, and industrial applications. Investments in certification, testing infrastructure, and export enablement for trusted drone technologies can significantly shorten go-to-market timelines. A technology-led Budget approach will not only strengthen India’s strategic autonomy but also position the country as a global hub for secure, intelligent cyber-physical systems.”
Pradeep Chauhan, Founder, Finfinity: “As we approach Budget 2026–27, we hope to see stronger policy support for digital lending and alternative credit platforms that are expanding formal credit access across India. Measures that incentivise data-led underwriting, strengthen co-lending frameworks, and provide clarity on regulatory compliance will be critical in enabling fintechs to responsibly serve underserved consumers and MSMEs. A forward-looking budget can accelerate financial inclusion while ensuring sustainable growth for the fintech ecosystem.“
