The government on Saturday announced a new Fund of Funds Scheme (FFS) with Rs 10,000 crore corpus to promote growth of budding entrepreneurs in the country.
In 2016 also, the government had launched a similar scheme, with a corpus of Rs 10,000 crore, with contribution spread over the 14th and 15th Finance Commission cycles.
The scheme was set up to catalyze venture capital investments and is operationalized by Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI), which provides capital to Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi)-registered AIFs, which in turn invest in startups.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that the Alternate Investment Funds (AIFs) for startups have received commitments of more than Rs 91,000 crore.
These are supported by the Fund of Funds set up with a government contribution of Rs 10,000 crore, she said.
"Now, a new Fund of Funds, with expanded scope and a fresh contribution of another Rs 10,000 crore will be set up," the minister added.
AIFs in a meeting with the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) had demanded infusion of more funds under the scheme.
Prominent AIFs of leading startup investment firms supported under FFS are Chiratae Ventures, India Quotient, Blume Ventures, IvyCap, Waterbridge, Omnivore, Aavishkaar, JM Financial, and Fireside Ventures.
AIFs supported under FFS are required to invest at least two times the amount committed under FFS in startups.
As on October 31, 2024, a total of Rs 20,572.14 crore has been invested by the FFS-supported AIFs in startups.
With an intent to build a strong ecosystem of the country for nurturing innovation and promoting startups, the government launched the Startup India initiative on January 16, 2016.
As per the government's eligibility conditions, entities are recognized as 'startups' under the Startup India initiative by the department.
As of October 31, 2024, a total of 152,139 entities have been recognised as startups across more than 55 industries.
These units are eligible to avail tax and non-tax incentives under the Startup India action plan.
Of these, over 46,000 entities have been recognised as startups across various technology and allied industries which may include deep-tech such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), biotechnology, nanotechnology, robotics, technology hardware, and Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality (AR/VR) among others.
The government under the Startup India initiative, through its flagship schemes Fund of Funds for Startups (FFS), Startup India Seed Fund Scheme and Credit Guarantee Scheme for Startups, has provided financial assistance to eligible recognised startups across sectors and through various stages of their business cycle.
DPIIT is the monitoring agency and SIDBI is the operating agency for FFS.
© 2025