Estonia Beckons Indian Startups with e-Residency Programme

The Republic of Estonia has a perfect solution for budding Indian entrepreneurs looking to ride the next digital wave and start up their ventures in a seamless, hassle free and technology-driven environment. Estonia is the world's first country to introduce an e-Residency programme that offers startups access to a government-issued digital ID, thus enabling the opening of a global EU company fully online while working from India.

Firms set up through e-Residency are `trusted location-independent EU companies`, which allows them to be run remotely from anywhere on Earth with low costs and minimal hassles. They have access to an advanced and secured digital infrastructure along with all the tools required to grow globally. Indian entrepreneurs now can run their micro-businesses not only in India but grow them with access to the entire EU market. e-Residency, therefore, stands for ‘Make in India & Sell in Europe’!

“I am very glad to be in India to strengthen bilateral cooperation and talk about the digital society of Estonia. A unique example of this is the e-Residency programme, which enables anyone in the world to start an European company. Thanks to this programme, the people of India can use the Estonian e-services and become virtual residents of Estonia. Our digital development has happened thanks to the government’s efforts in e-governance and cyber security, and of course also our technology companies who have been our partner for developing governmental e-services.”Republic of Estonia’s Entrepreneurship & IT Minister Urve Palo says.

Already more than 1,200 Indian citizens are e-residents and the Baltic nation expects this figure to grow exponentially in the coming years, as the economic ties between Estonia, India and the European Union deepen further. Estonia aims to reach out to the booming Indian startup community through a series of road shows and industry tie-ups in the next 12 months. The program aims to enroll over 200 startups during 2018.

Kaspar Korjus, Managing Director of Republic of Estonia’s e-Residency programme, explains, “The size of our countries might be very different, but Estonia and India actually have many things in common. Like Estonia, India has always been a very entrepreneurial country. India has the world’s largest freelance workforce with the highest percentage working in software development & technology, while Estonia is a global leader in ICT technologies, especially in e-Government. e-Residency can help leverage these common points by offering Indian entrepreneurs the opportunity to open and run a global EU company fully online from India or anywhere in the world and provide their access to the European market of 500 million people. India’s potential is huge and we are more than happy to contribute to unlock it.”

Estonia launched its e-Residency programme in December 2014 and as on date has over 30,000 e-residents from 140 countries. India will have the largest young workforce by 2020 with the average age being 29. As a consequence, the e-Residency programme is the perfect solution especially for young Indians who want an independent and self owned startup venture.