UP Start-up Fund not to be invested directly into start-ups; to be used in SEBI approved Alternative Investment Funds

Lucknow, May 21 (KNN) The Rs 15 crore fund received by the Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) from the Uttar Pradesh Government will be used in the form of Fund of Funds.

The fund will not be invested directly into start-ups, rather it will participate in Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) approved Alternative Investment Funds. It will be professionally managed, with SIDBI acting as the fund manager.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath on Wednesday launched the 'UP Start-up Fund' to be managed by SIDBI. The fund has been set up under the UP Information Technology and Start-up Policy 2017.

"Due to the efforts of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the start-up culture is picking up in India. The PM envisions the youth as job creators," he said after signing the MoU with SIDBI.

Adityanath further noted that UP had unlimited start-up potential and offered huge opportunities in different sectors, including agriculture, health, education, IT, micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) etc, to create large scale job opportunities.

He also stressed upon the promotion of youth centric programmes - Start-up India, Stand-up India and Make in India for greater traction.

Earlier, the state government had announced that it would create the start-up fund with a corpus of Rs 1,000 to establish new business ventures and nurture entrepreneurship among the youth.

UP Government has plans to set up country's largest incubation hub in Lucknow, apart from an incubation centre each at the 75 districts of the state. The fund will aim at supporting the registered start-up ventures across different verticals in UP. The Fund will operate for a period of 12 years.

Currently, 18 incubators and more than 1,800 start-ups are operational in the state.

"We are also managing the Rs 10,000 crore Fund of Funds for Startups (FFS) on behalf of the Government of India. The state specific funds have shown interest to align with FFS for the objective of supporting start-ups through Fund of Funds operations as well as direct investment in the state specific startups," SIDBI CMD Mohammad Mustafa said.