Cabinet approves establishment of Fund of Funds under SIDBI to support Start-ups

New Delhi, June 22 (KNN) The Union Cabinet, chaired by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has approved the establishment of "Fund of Funds for Startups" (FFS) at Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) for contribution to various Alternative Investment Funds (AIF), registered with Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) which would extend funding support to Startups.

The corpus of FFS is Rs.10,000 crore which shall be built up over the 14th and 15th Finance Commission cycles subject to progress of the scheme and availability of funds. An amount of Rs.500 crore has already been provided to the corpus of FFS in 2015-16 and Rs.600 crore earmarked in the 2016-17.

The Fund is expected to generate employment for 18 lakh persons on full deployment, said an official press release.

Further provisions will be made as grant assistance through Gross Budgetary Support by Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) which will monitor and review performance in line with the Start up India Action Plan.

The expertise of SIDBI would be utilized to manage the day to day operations of the FFS. The monitoring and review of performance would be linked to the implementation of the Start Up Action Plan to enable execution as per timelines and milestones.

A corpus of Rs. 10,000 crore could potentially be the nucleus for catalyzing Rs. 60,000 crore of equity investment and twice as much debt investment. This would provide a stable and predictable source of funding for Start up enterprises and thereby facilitate large scale job creation. (With PIB inputs)