Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) will launch the platform with small scale industry development
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“It was approved in one of the meetings of the National Startup Advisory Council. It is a match making platform for startups and investors and it is in the final stages of completion. We will launch it in the next two months,” said an on Friday. Shruti Singh, Joint Secretary, DPIIT said in the press conference.
Singh said the platform will initially involve investors and fund houses from India and after reviewing their performance, look for global funds.
“There will be funds that will be online, and startups will be able to access the same easily… From the investor side, there will be alternative investment funds (AIFs) where they will mention the areas they will be looking at and how much they are willing to invest,” he said.
As part of the Startup India initiative, the government implemented the Fund of Funds (FFS) scheme for startups in 2016 with a corpus of Rs 10,000 crore to provide funding support for startups. Through the scheme, the government provides funding to the registered AIFs.
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ET reported on the government’s startup initiatives on May 7.
Singh said around Rs 7,300 crore was committed to around 86 AIFs and AIFs were able to raise seven times more funds in the market.
“Investors have invested over Rs 9,500 crore in 600 and more startups in India through the government’s Fund of Funds scheme,” he said.
The government has also set up a Startup India Seed Fund with an outlay of Rs 945 crore, which provides financial assistance to startups for proof of concept, prototype development, product testing, market entry and commercialization.
The initiative was aimed at supporting an estimated 3,600 entrepreneurs through 300 incubators over the next four years.
“For this scheme, we have so far funded more than 100 incubators and 436 startups have been benefited from it,” Singh said.
About 50% of India’s startups are from small towns.
“The young generation in the country is very inclusive, the boards of many startups comprise about 50% women and the jobs created by startups have also increased manifold,” Singh said.