Can India’s BRICS Presidency Pay Off for Startups?

In an increasingly hostile world, entrepreneurial minds remain distinctly free, boldly liberated and rebelliously creative - even as markets grow increasingly conservative. And, just at a juncture when markets of the aspirant Global South begin to rely on its senses, Washington’s decisions are challenging them. As waves of announcements from the western capital frustrate seasoned actors and invalidate conventional predictions, the two sanction-rigged economies of Iran and Russia within the BRICS are making market observations exercise phenomenally thrilling. In an interview, Russian far-right political philosopher Alexander Dugin, two years ago, told this writer that Western powers had divided the world into two: the West and the rest. BRICS, born almost accidentally after economic liberalization from the mind of an armchair strategist, is now seasoning the storms.

For China, Russia, as well as Brazil, BRICS has played a vital strategic role in maintaining economic ties. The inclusion of the UAE makes the aspiring bloc even more appealing to a confused world amid war tensions, excessive cost increases, sudden policy announcements and, after all, tariff threats.

India has much more to branch into during her presidency. Under India’s 2026 leadership, the alliance is expected to shift substantial focus towards small and medium enterprises (SMEs), rather than remaining centred primarily on conglomerates and giants. While China and to some extent Russia dominate BRICS trade, BRICS is successfully unlocking alternative bilateral routes between other robust markets and India. This is India’s first presidency after the expansion of the group to 11 members spread across Asia, Africa, Eurasia and Latin America. The original BRICS grouping consisted of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and Indonesia joined the bloc, having 10 more countries as partners. Building consensus with the stake of all its diverse members during a presidency shaped by fluctuations and frustrations will be the defining challenge for New Delhi.

Under India’s 2026 BRICS presidency, the Ministry of MSME of India has institutionalised three SME Working Group meetings and launched the inaugural BRICS MSME Forum, explicitly prioritising fintech-driven credit, digital trade payments and global value-chain integration.

BRICS Business Council and BRICS Chamber of Commerce & Industry are attempting to set up a Single-Window access model to simplify regulatory compliance and tariff structures for Indian firms entering BRICS markets. BRICS Business Council’s 2025 report outlines 47 private-sector initiatives, including sectoral corridors for green manufacturing and agri-tech, offering Indian startups a structured entry into supply chains across Brazil, Egypt, Ethiopia and beyond. BRICS Centre for Industrial Competencies with India’s National Productivity Council as the nodal agency further provides a one-stop hub for enhancing Industry 4.0 capabilities and productivity for manufacturing MSMEs.

Over the years, BRICS has diversified its focus whereas the core idea remains the same. BRICS SME Working Group’s 2025–2030 Action Plan promotes innovative financing mechanisms and credit readiness. Indian startups should avail the benefits of the proposed BRICS SME Fund and New Development Bank instruments for partial credit guarantees and working-capital lines tied to export orders. The revival of a BRICS Angel Investor Network connects Indian angel groups with counterparts across member nations and further facilitates cross-border seed and growth capital.

The upcoming BRICS Pay system is all set to enable local-currency settlements and reduce foreign-exchange costs as well as intermediary fees for small-ticket cross-border transactions. Meanwhile, the Digital Economy & AI working group advocates sector-specific cyber-resilience toolkits for MSMEs. IT and cybersecurity startups are well positioned to co-develop low-cost, scalable solutions for BRICS partners facing digital-adoption gaps.

BRICS Startup Forum, under Startup India, provides another dedicated stage for Indian startups to secure funding, mentorship and cross-border collaboration. With BRICS representing about 39% of global GDP and 24% of world trade post-expansion, the bloc offers a massive and diversified market.

But India has much more to do. The right time is now or never.

India has no shortage of startups, talent or customers. But it has a shortage of conversion.

With 159,157 DPIIT-recognised startups and roughly $11.3 billion in technology funding in 2024, India is in the startup race but struggling to create strong margins, or deliver global standard products at every corner.

China converts scale into industrial power through state-backed capital, manufacturing networks and 2.69% of GDP invested in R&D, more than three times India’s 0.84%. Brazil turns fintech, agriculture and logistics problems into investable businesses. The UAE, despite its small population, attracts capital through speed, infrastructure and global connectivity: its startup funding reportedly rose 84% in 2025.

India’s real obstacles are fragmented regulation, weak university knowledge-industry links, limited deep-tech funding, slow public procurement and too few corporate acquisitions.

India has built a magnificent startup funnel. Now it must build the machinery that turns ideas into intellectual property, profitable companies and global champions. India’s problem lies in execution - with better capital, customers and courage. India’s startups need a lighthouse as well as a playground that BRICS can offer.

India, the habitat of a mosaic of 1.5 billion people and an economically monetisable market, is much smaller in practice than its massive population base suggests. A large portion of this population-driven market remains highly price-sensitive, informal or difficult to serve profitably. India’s startups remain less successful at commercialising original, homegrown technologies. The small and medium players must learn to convert the nation’s vast domestic population into a prospective, sizable market by adopting and adapting the practices of advanced players across BRICS.

BRICS Beyond the Obvious

BRICS is home to almost half of the population. It has appealing market partners in addition to its members. In an interview around 2022, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov affirmed this journalist Russia’s aggressive moves on payment settlements, and hardly anyone now faces a payment problem. Forums and business channels should now focus on how to bring small but impactful players, such as Tirupur’s garment manufacturers, into the web of payment systems when it comes to trade with Russia. The big players are walking shoulder to shoulder fast, finding matches faster but the smaller ones have hardly found any partner. BRICS has to solve these pains of small players in order to remain a relevant intergovernmental group.

Unlike the 50-year-old SWIFT network, which primarily handles messaging, the alternative SIPS payment mechanism combines messaging and settlement. While it currently has only 10% of the bank connectivity that SWIFT has, its volume is growing significantly. On the other hand, Project mBridge is an active cross-border wholesale digital-currency programme connecting the central banks of China, Hong Kong, Thailand, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, allowing direct digital settlement that bypasses the US dollar.

For BRICS, the opportunity also extends into three broad tracks: a Financial Track, providing a fast track to membership and funding within the New Development Bank, a Macroeconomic Stabilisation Track, fast-tracking access to a modernised BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement to support partner nations during financial or currency crises and a Trade Track, offering preferential trade access to BRICS core markets as a catalyst for broader trade liberalisation. Indian manufacturers are increasingly targeting consumers in the BRICS and partner economies, investing in local distribution and importing products. Consider the case of Royal Enfield Brasil.

Nevertheless, BRICS does not mean tariff-free trade. Intra-BRICS trade remains underdeveloped, while the grouping faces unresolved issues around institutional coherence, membership and financial mechanisms. Small players should therefore refrain from building longer capacity plans on the assumption that BRICS will become an EU-style common market. Instead, management teams of the startups and middle-size organizations across industries - should identify specific mechanisms that can actually lower transaction costs, payment interoperability, local-currency settlement, trade-finance availability, customs digitisation, regulatory recognition, standards harmonisation, investment guarantees, logistics connectivity, government procurement and business-to-business platforms.

MSMEs are the backbone of India’s economy. In fact, MSMEs comprise around 7.3 crore enterprises, contribute nearly 30% of GDP and account for about 45% of the country’s exports.

India’s BRICS year should therefore be judged not just by declarations, summits and high-level movements but by whether its smallest ambitious businesses can move across borders with greater ease. BRICS needs to touch the lives and livelihoods of smallest players. Indian FMCG or food products or a local namkeen maker in Nagpur or a spice startup in Kochi can quietly conquer supermarket shelves in São Paulo, Addis Ababa or Johannesburg. When standards are simpler, payments smoother and logistics less Kafkaesque, BRICS stops being a talking shop and starts becoming a supply chain. Add to that the secret weapon of Indian restaurants, diaspora WhatsApp groups and Bollywood-fed curiosity, and you have a ready-made soft-power sales force. The day our smallest FMCG and food brands go global via BRICS, the acronym will actually taste real.

We measure our economic world through the currency architecture prescribed by Bretton Woods, while every day we choose beverages from the two bottles, produced by the West. We don’t have any single one of our own that India drinks.

Unlike ageing European nations, these expanding BRICS markets are exceptionally young, which  means they have long-term consumer demand. With a $700 billion startup market, India is positioning itself as the architect of a pan-BRICS innovation architecture by proposing a BRICS Incubator Network and a dedicated Startup Innovation Fund.

Such a drive could help aspiring markets such as Ethiopia and Egypt create institutional channels for cross-border capital, mentorship and market access. Built atop the BRICS Startup Knowledge Hub launched in January 2025, the network will link existing incubators and accelerators across member states, while the fund is designed to pool resources for early-stage, innovation-led ventures in priority sectors such as MSMEs, photovoltaics and logistics.

At the 10th BRICS Industry Ministers’ Meeting recently held in August 2026 in Jaipur, ministers adopted a joint declaration approving an action plan for startup growth, finalising an SME cooperation framework and photovoltaic working-group terms.

Under India’s BRICS presidency, startups will have to seize the moment and create a fitting ecosystem. BRICS will be effective for India only if it can strengthen startups and small dreams, the backbone of the country’s economy. The real opportunity lies in enabling Indian startups to solve the social, psychological, human centric and economic challenges of BRICS countries as well as their partners. But without regulatory coherence and predictable rules, cross-border expansion will remain a far-reaching dream. If technology, collective needs and skills gaps are not bridged, BRICS platforms will remain underused. In short, unless these structural gaps are closed, BRICS will remain a diplomatic exercise, not a driving force for businesses.