UP to set up Rs 150 cr start-up corpus fund with support from BHU, others

Under its new start-up policy the state govt aims to set up 100 incubators, with at least one in each district, including India's largest incubator in Lucknow

In a move that comes as a shot in the arm for start-ups operating in areas other than information technology in Uttar Pradesh, the Adityanath government is forming a corpus fund of Rs 150 crore afer revising its policy to include non-IT  enterprises within its ambit.

A corpus fund is a capital fund, under which an amount kept aside for an enterprise to operate and maintain itself. These funds are built through voluntary contributions.

UP’s much talked about fund has garnered interest from leading Venture Funds and AIFs in the country. Sidbi, the designated fund manager for the UP Startup Fund has so far received four applications from leading AIFs in the country for an amount of Rs 285 crore to create the initial corpus. The decision on these applications will soon be taken by Sidbi and the start-up nodal agency in its first Venture Capital Investment Committee (VCIC) meeting scheduled to be held this month.

The state government has also opened its coffers and released Rs 41 Lakh to the start-up nodal agency, to be disbursed to start-ups and incubators whose proposals were already approved by the Policy Implementation Committee (PIU). This amount will be disbursed to enterprises in the form of sustenance allowance at the ideation stage, seed capital assistance at the commercialisation stage and capital grant to incubators for strengthening the IT infrastructure.

The state government has already set up a corpus fund of Rs 150 crore with the help of Abdul Kalam Technical University (AKTU) to fund start-ups. Under the new start-up policy the state government aims to set up 100  incubators, with at least one in each district, including India’s largest incubator in Lucknow. Many academic institutions such as Banaras Hindu University, High Tech Institute, ABES Engineering College, Krishna Engineering College, Jaipuria Institute of Management and others have shown interest in setting up incubators under the new policy.

The policy has special incentives and rebates for start-ups and incubators being set up in the backward regions of Bundelkhand and Eastern UP.