MCA, Startup Policy Forum hold first compliance clinic to address startup pain points
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Startup founders and compliance professionals got rare, direct face time with senior government officials as the Ministry of Corporate Affairs and the Startup Policy Forum held the first edition of the Startup Compliance Clinic, an initiative aimed at tackling regulatory bottlenecks faced by young companies.
Held in New Delhi, the closed-door session brought together over 75 founders, CFOs, legal heads and compliance professionals from across India’s startup ecosystem. The discussions focused on practical issues that routinely trip up startups, from incorporation and name reservation to share issuance, capital structure, MCA portal filings and overlaps between different regulators.
Instead of a one-way briefing, the clinic was designed as a problem-solving forum, with startups raising implementation-level queries and senior MCA officials responding in real time.
Deepti Gaur Mukerjee, secretary at the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, signalled a more collaborative stance from the government. She said the ministry was committed to working closely with startups, addressing operational challenges and improving ease of doing business, while acting as a partner rather than just a regulator.
The clinic was jointly led by Balamurugan D., Joint Secretary at MCA, and Shweta Rajpal Kohli, President and CEO of Startup Policy Forum. Senior MCA officials, including Sidhil Sasi, Deputy Director General, and N.K. Dua, Director, were also present, fielding questions and clarifying compliance processes directly with participants.
According to people in the room, many of the queries centred on ambiguities in reporting requirements and the lack of clarity when startups deal with multiple regulators at once. Officials walked participants through procedural issues on the MCA portal and explained how certain compliance rules are interpreted in practice, rather than just on paper.
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“This is about resolving real pain points around compliance and ease of doing business,” Shweta Rajpal Kohli said, adding that startups often struggle not because of intent, but because of gaps between regulation and execution. “We are hugely grateful to the Ministry of Corporate Affairs for their responsiveness and collaborative approach,” she said. “We look forward to many more editions of this Clinic as a sustained platform to encourage direct engagement between government and the ministry”.
The Startup Compliance Clinic is being positioned as an ongoing initiative, with multiple editions planned. The idea is to create a structured feedback loop where on-the-ground startup challenges are regularly fed back to the ministry, while enabling quicker clarifications and course correction.
For the Startup Policy Forum, which represents over 60 of India’s largest and fastest-growing startups with a combined valuation exceeding $100 billion, the clinic also reflects a push to move policy conversations beyond position papers and into operational detail.
What this really means is that compliance, long seen as a friction point for startups, may finally get a forum where problems are discussed before they become penalties.