BRICS Just Proposed a Startup Incubator Network Spanning Five Continents

BRICS countries backed the establishment of a startup incubator network and agreed to consider setting up a BRICS Startup Innovation Fund, as part of the New Delhi Declaration adopted at the 18th BRICS Summit, held in the capital on September 12 and 13 under India's chairship. Rather than treat startup cooperation as a symbolic add-on to the summit's broader economic agenda, the declaration framed the proposed fund explicitly as a mechanism to catalyse startups for innovation-led growth — a notably concrete commitment for a multilateral grouping more often associated with broad geopolitical statements than operational startup infrastructure.

Strengthening What Already Exists, Rather Than Starting From Zero

BRICS leaders also backed strengthening the existing Startup Knowledge Hub and Startup Forum, and called for deeper engagement between startups and small businesses across member countries — India, Brazil, Russia, China, South Africa and the bloc's more recently added members. The declaration additionally called for greater participation of young entrepreneurs and researchers through existing programmes, alongside a proposed virtual platform specifically for BRICS youth startups, designed to let founders across member countries network and exchange ideas without requiring physical travel or a shared incubator location.

The Digital Infrastructure Layer Underneath the Startup Push

Startup cooperation didn't stand alone in the declaration — it sat alongside a broader digital infrastructure agenda. BRICS proposed a digital public infrastructure repository for member states, along with pilot projects around DPI-led digital transformation, arguing that digital public infrastructure and digital public goods can help member countries deliver services at scale and expand economic and social opportunity. Given India's own experience building UPI and Aadhaar as globally referenced examples of DPI, the emphasis on this layer reflects India's specific chairship priorities showing up directly in the bloc's shared agenda.

On AI, the declaration called for wider access to AI resources across member countries while stressing safety, security, inclusiveness and reliability — alongside a commitment to implementing the BRICS Leaders' Statement on the Global Governance of Artificial Intelligence, and a specific emphasis on AI's role in economic growth and science across the Global South. The grouping also signalled cooperation intentions in quantum technologies, Industry 4.0, robotics and advanced digital manufacturing.

The MSME Financing Piece That Could Matter Most for Founders

Perhaps the most immediately practical element of the declaration for smaller businesses was its focus on access to finance. BRICS countries backed credit assessment frameworks specifically for export-oriented MSMEs, built to use diverse and relevant data sources to improve risk assessment and expand access to formal finance — a direct response to a problem that limits small business growth across nearly every BRICS economy. The bloc also welcomed the Jaipur Consensus, aimed at studying an invoice discounting mechanism for BRICS members that could help MSMEs unlock working capital and participate more actively in international trade, alongside calls for greater digitisation of trade documentation.

Faster, Cheaper Cross-Border Payments as the Connective Tissue

Running alongside the startup and MSME initiatives, the BRICS Payment Task Force continued studying interoperability between payment and messaging systems and the use of local currencies for trade settlement — with the declaration calling for cross-border payment solutions that are faster, lower-cost, more accessible, transparent and safe, while acknowledging that different member countries may pursue different technical approaches to get there.

Why It Matters for Startup Spotlight

The New Delhi Declaration is a useful signal of BRICS attempting to convert broad economic cooperation rhetoric into practical, founder-relevant infrastructure — an incubator network, potential innovation fund, MSME credit frameworks, and faster cross-border payments, all under one summit's agenda. For Indian founders specifically, India's chairship role in shaping this year's priorities suggests the country is positioning itself as the connective hub for a genuinely global, non-Western startup cooperation framework — one that could eventually offer Indian startups formal access to incubation networks, funding pools and MSME financing structures spanning Brazil, Russia, China, South Africa and the bloc's newer members, well beyond India's existing domestic incubator ecosystem.

Innovation Hub

At www.elevatexstudios.com / ElevateX Studios, Innovation Hub, part of our Startup Spotlight coverage, tracks the incubators, accelerators and campus-based programmes shaping how Indian startups actually get built.