PM UNVEILS ₹1K-CR FUND FOR STARTUPS

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday announced the launch of ₹1,000 crore-startup India Seed Fund to provide capital to entrepreneurs for innovative business plans.

“This fund will help in the launch of new start-ups and their growth,” the PM said at Prarambh, the startup India international summit jointly organised by the department for promotion of industry and internal trade (DPIIT) and the industry. “India is one of the largest ecosystems in the world. Today, more than 41,000 startups are engaged in India and involved in different types of initiatives. Out of that more than 5,700 are engaged in IT sector, over 3,600 in health sector and about 1,700 in agriculture sector,” PM Modi said.

Union commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal tweeted, “India now has the 3rd largest Startup ecosystem in the world, with over 41,000 Govt recognised startups spread across 590 districts since the launch of ‘Startup India’ in 2016 by PM @Narendramodi ji.” The government will soon notify the scheme along with details such as eligibility criteria and interest rates, two government officials said requesting anonymity. “This is in addition to the ₹10,000 crore Fund of Funds (FFS) for startups announced about five years ago,” one of the officials said. FFS, managed by Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI), was set up in 2016 with a total corpus of ₹10,000 crore. As of December 1, 2020, SIDBI had committed ₹4326.95 crore to 60 alternative investment funds (AIFS), which have raised a total corpus of ₹31,598 crore, the first official said. FFS provides support for development and growth of innovation driven enterprises and startups facing the challenge of access to the risk capital. The two-day startup India international summit was inaugurated on Friday. It was also attended by Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) countries.