The need to support craft startups from insights to innovation

India has a rich cultural heritage in crafts and the sector has thrived for centuries. Today, with over 3,000 craft forms and 7 million artisans, the country is strongly positioned to be a unique and fertile bed for product and business innovation. The sector is transforming to meet the emerging needs and evolving contexts, and craft startups across the country and value chains are poised as a potent catalyzer of this change. The country’s crafts value chain essentially consists of five distinct stages – artisan development, raw material sourcing, craft development, product development and access to customers. The journey of every single craft product begins with nurturing the crafts through community building of artisans, procurement of raw materials, and goes through crafting, processing, product development and supply chain before reaching the end customers in a variety of ways. Interestingly, most crafts practised in India today are indigenous and do not face competition, making it important to prove authenticity and granting additional protection from machine-made products and plagiarism in international markets.

In India, the sector is largely governed by the Ministry of Textiles, Government of India, however, a few other ministries also extend support to the sector for various goals such as livelihood generation, skilling and training of artisans, export promotion of domestic products and support to vulnerable communities. Despite such efforts, it is however important to note that only 20% of the artisans – over 1.5 million – have availed of artisan cards (issued by the Ministry of Textiles) that ease access to multiple government schemes. This background thus stresses the importance for the industry to consolidate government efforts and private sector initiatives, boost the growth of the sector and elevate the impact for artisans and craft forms.

With the government’s push in cultivating a startup ecosystem, the crafts sector has also witnessed a number of startups being founded. The startups in this sector have additionally started to function as a bridge between various government agencies and the artisans/artisan groups or craft enterprises. They can interpret various schemes available to them, keep them informed of policy and regulatory changes and simplify otherwise complicated procedures. ERP and its modified or tailored versions such as Customer Relationship Management tools or Inventory management tools add immense value to the operations of a craft enterprise by optimising their limited resources. Customised solutions can improve efficiency and transparency in the supply chain and operations of an enterprise, by enabling them to manage purchase, sales, inventory management, financial accounting, payroll, waste management etc.

In recent years, several startups have come forward to build solutions that streamline the sector. Currently, startup interventions are predominantly in spaces of livelihood enhancement, operations management in the value chain, and improving market linkages. Some of these have also been able to attract investments from angel investors and venture capitalists. While the trend of investments has been unpredictable, the fact that there have been regular venture investments made in the sector across the last decade showcases its potential and a viable opportunity for investors.

However, one needs to understand that each category requires a different coaching and incubation approach. The ecosystem needs to look at designing cluster-based training programs and infrastructure development with technology-enabled design inputs, crafting processes and market linkages to create some exciting future opportunities for startups.

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