After a disruption in operational cycles due to the COVID-19 outbreak, reports now indicate that green shoots are beginning to appear for the startup sector.

According to the NASSCOM-Zinnov report for 2021, the sector saw an addition of over 1,600 startups in 2020. It also saw the additions of 12 unicorns, which is the highest ever in a single calendar year.

According to the same report, the Indian tech startup base is seeing growth at a scale of 8-10 percent year-on-year (YoY).

NASSCOM's second startup pulse survey also reinforces those findings. According to that survey, tech startups facing losses were down three times since May 2020 with over 50% expecting revenues to reach pre-COVID levels by April 2021. The survey also shows that 20 percent more tech startups have lifted a hiring freeze since May 2020.

The funding environment has also improved with up to four times more startups being able to raise funds since the previous survey. But challenges do remain with approximately 48 percent seed stage startups and 60% B2C startups still struggling to raise funds.

In the special show ‘Rising With Resilience’, CNBC-TV18’s Shereen Bhan spoke to Ajay Ranjan, global head of transaction banking at Yes Bank; Saurabh Srivastava, former chairman of NASSCOM and founder of India Angel Network; Sharad Sharma, co-founder of ISpirit Foundation; and Nitin Kamath, founder & CEO of Zerodha to discuss the recovery in the startup ecosystem.

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(Edited by : Bivekananda Biswas)