Government Notifies Startup India FoF 2.0:
The government notified Startup India Fund of Funds (FoF) 2.0 with a ₹10,000 crore corpus to mobilise capital for startups and strengthen India’s innovation ecosystem.
- It builds on the earlier Fund of Funds for Startups (FFS 1.0, 2016) under the Startup India Action Plan to address funding gaps.
- Objective is to catalyse domestic capital and support startups across key sectors, especially where private funding remains limited.
- The fund will invest in SEBI-registered Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs), which in turn invest in startups.
- It follows a segmented approach focusing on deep tech, early-stage, innovative manufacturing, and technology-driven startups.
- It also provides higher contribution for capital-intensive sectors and flexibility for larger corpus and longer-duration AIFs.
- SIDBI (Small Industries Development Bank of India) will operationalise the scheme with provision for an additional implementing agency.
- Selection of AIFs will be undertaken by a Venture Capital Investment Committee (VCIC), with monitoring and oversight by an Empowered Committee (EC).
- Investments will be spread across 16th and 17th Finance Commission cycles.
- The scheme acts as an umbrella framework for co-investment by government and institutional investors, and includes provisions for ecosystem support such as capacity building, mentorship, and regulatory assistance.
