249 startups given financial support by FFS in last three years: Goyal

A total of 249 startups have been supported in the past three years with the Fund of Funds for Startups (FFS), the government said on Friday.

The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) is the monitoring agency and Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) is the operating agency for FFS.

Financial assistance was given to 62 startups in 2016-17, 58 in 2017-18, 98 in 2018-19 and 31 till June 13 in 2019-20, said Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal.

FFS contributes to the corpus of SEBI registered Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs). These AIFs in turn have to invest at least twice the contribution under FFS in startups, as defined by the Government of India.

Each AIF sets up its own investment committee and the investment committee of each fund takes a decision on its investment decisions, said Goyal in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha.

"These decisions are largely a matter of business decisions which depend on a host of factors like uniqueness, innovativeness, intellectual property and business potential," he said.

In another reply, Goyal said a draft national e-commerce policy has been placed in the public domain. It addresses broad areas like infrastructure development, e-commerce marketplaces, regulatory issues, stimulating domestic digital economy and export promotion.

Besides, a standing group of secretaries has been constituted under the chairmanship of Secretary at the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade for ensuring inter-ministerial and inter-departmental coordination on resolving issues.

The government has also taken several reform measures with an aim to improve regulatory environment and facilitate doing business in India, said Goyal. India moved up 23 notches to rank 77 among 190 countries in the World Bank's Doing Business Report 2019.

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