Govt to set up digital platform for startups, investors to sign deals quickly

The Department of Promotion for Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) will launch the platform along with the Small Industries Development

(SIDBI).

“This was approved in one of the national startup advisory council meetings. It is a match-making platform for startups and investors and it is in the final stages of closing. We will launch it in the next two months,” said Shruti Singh, joint secretary, DPIIT at a press conference on Friday.

Singh said the platform will initially onboard investors and fund houses from India and look for global funds after reviewing its performance.

“There will be funds that will be online, and startups will easily be able to access the same…from the investor side, there will be alternative investment funds (AIFs) where they will mention the sectors they will be looking at and how much they are willing to invest,” she said.

The government, as part of the Startup India initiative, implemented a Fund of Funds for Startups (FFS) scheme in 2016 with a corpus of Rs 10,000 crore to provide funding support for startups. Through the scheme, the government provides funding to registered AIFs.

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ET reported on the government’s startup initiatives on May 7.

Singh said around Rs 7,300 crore had been committed to around 86 AIFs and the AIFs were able to raise seven times more funds in the market.

“Investors have deployed more than Rs 9,500 crore in 600 and more startups in India through the government’s Fund of Funds scheme,” she said.

The government also set up a startup India seed fund with an outlay of Rs 945 crore to provide financial assistance to startups for proof of concept, prototype development, product trials, market entry, and commercialization.

The initiative was aimed at supporting an estimated 3,600 entrepreneurs through 300 incubators in the next four years.

“For this scheme, we have so far given money to more than 100 incubators and 436 startups have been able to benefit from this,” Singh added.

Almost 50% of India’s startups are from small towns.

“Younger generation in the country is very inclusive, around 50% of the board of many startups comprise women and jobs created by startups have also grown multi-fold,” Singh added.