Govt to give bulk of ₹10,000 cr startup fund to AI, tech sectors: Official

The commerce and industry ministry will allocate a major part of the second ₹10,000 crore Fund of Funds Scheme (FFS) for startups to budding entrepreneurs in sectors such as new-age technology, artificial intelligence, and machine building, an official said.

In the Budget, the government announced a new FFS with a corpus of ₹10,000 crore. In 2016 also, the government had launched a similar scheme.

"We are going to dedicate a lot of this ₹10,000 crore fund of funds largely for the new age tech, AI, and machine building," the official said.

The 2016 scheme was set up to catalyse venture capital investments and is operationalised by the Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI), which provides capital to Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi)-registered AIFs, which in turn invest in startups.

SIDBI is expected to manage the second scheme also, the official added.

With an intent to build a strong ecosystem of the country for nurturing innovation and promoting startups, the government launched the Startup India initiative on January 16, 2016.

As per the government's eligibility conditions, entities are recognised as 'startups' under the Startup India initiative by the department. So far, over 1,50,000 entities have been recognised as startups across more than 55 industries.

These units are eligible to avail tax and non-tax incentives under the Startup India action plan.