A recognised startup is a company that, under the Startup India initiative, is eligible for acknowledgement as a startup by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT). Recognised startups are granted access to tax benefits, easier compliance norms, Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) fast-tracking and more.

There are five criteria a company has to meet to become a recognised startup. They are the tenure of existence and operations, type of company, annual turnover, originality, and innovation with scalability. India has over 61,400 startups recognised by the DPIIT, at least 14,000 of which were added to the list in FY2022.