Opinion What Startup20 provides the world

This achievement was the culmination of nearly a decade of gradual progress. In 2015, under Turkey’s presidency, the SME and Entrepreneurship Task Force was organised. Japan followed in 2019 with the formation of the Young Entrepreneurs’ Alliance, an initiative that continues independently. Italy’s 2021 presidency introduced the first G20 start-up competition — the G20 Innovation League — which was expanded by Indonesia in 2022 into the G20 Digital Innovation Network. These efforts, spanning continents and income levels — from emerging markets like Turkey and Indonesia to advanced economies like Italy and Japan — were early signals of a growing recognition: That start-ups and SMEs are critical engines of inclusive and sustainable global growth.

India capitalised on this momentum, propelled by its own rapidly expanding start-up ecosystem, to propose the formal establishment of Startup20. This initiative brought an ambidextrous character to G20 — making it able to harness both the stability of the large and the agility of the small. The Covid pandemic showcased the power of this dual approach: For the first time in history, vaccines were developed and deployed within a year. Relatively smaller companies like Moderna, and Bharat Biotech, and Oxford’s labs drove early development, while giants like Pfizer and AstraZeneca scaled them globally through partnerships. It was a clear case of large and small working in tandem to deliver unprecedented impact.

When we launched Startup20 in India, the overarching objective was to produce policy recommendations to harmonise the global start-up ecosystem while retaining the autonomy and vibrant diversity of national ecosystems. When Brazil assumed the G20 presidency in 2024, this vision faced its first real test. Brazil sought both to strengthen its domestic start-up ecosystem — earning recognition from its government and visibility on the world stage — and to advance the global policy priorities inherited from India. Both objectives were achieved, and important lessons emerged as the forum prepared for its next chapter in South Africa in 2025.

The first two years of Startup20 succeeded in creating a structured process for producing a policy communiqué that captured the collective demands of global start-up and SME ecosystems. However, they also revealed two critical gaps: There was no systematic process for translating these recommendations into national policies, and no mechanism for long-term continuity. In response, the forum proposed the creation of an international secretariat to address these gaps — an inherently “start-up-like” solution for a start-up-focused platform.

India’s inaugural policy communiqué had issued a bold call: To increase G20 nations’ collective investment in the global start-up ecosystem to $1 trillion by 2030. To realise this ambition, it proposed several foundational steps. One, developing a global start-up definition and harmonising governance standards. Two, creating mechanisms for accessing global capital, talent, and markets. Three, promoting inclusion by supporting underrepresented groups and four, identifying and scaling start-ups aligned with global priorities like the SDGs.

Brazil refined these themes and introduced new ones. In the area of finance, it proposed standardising investment information, leveraging tokenisation for access to capital, and using blended finance instruments for deep tech. It elevated environmental sustainability as a core theme, emphasising start-ups in renewable energy, circular economy, and social enterprise — core pillars of Brazil’s G20 agenda. Additional emphasis was placed on education, capacity building, and corporate governance. A new task force on regulation and public policy was created to develop guidelines for ethical innovation and harmonised regulatory frameworks across nations.

Now, with South Africa’s G20 presidency having launched Startup20’s 2025 convening on July 21 in Johannesburg, the work continues with five dedicated task forces – foundation and alliances, finance and investment, inclusion and sustainability, trade and market access and township and rural entrepreneurship.

Several firsts define the South Africa chapter. For the first time, townships and rural areas are receiving focused policy attention. For the first time, private-sector leadership is being encouraged to represent national interests. And crucially, for the first time, there is a concerted effort to develop a mechanism for implementing policy recommendations — not just producing them.

As Startup20 enters its third year, we must still ask the foundational question: What is this forum doing that wouldn’t happen otherwise? The answer is clear: Startup20 provides the world’s highest policy platform where G20 nations’ start-up and SME ecosystems can collectively articulate their needs — needs that no single country can address alone. In doing so, it ensures that the agility of the start-up world has a seat at the global policy table — right alongside the powerhouses of business and government.

Vaishnav is founding chair, Ajmone Marsan is member, the International Secretariat, and Jarana is the South Africa chair of Startup20. Views are personal