Commerce Ministry notifies Rs 945 crore seed fund for startups

3AI February 2, 2021

DPIIT said that preference would be given to startups offering solutions in sectors including social impact, waste management, water management, financial inclusion, education, agriculture, food processing, biotechnology, healthcare, energy, mobility, defence, space, railways, oil and gas, textiles, etc.

The government has approved the Rs 945-crore Startup India Seed Fund Scheme (SISFS) for the period 2021-25 to offer early-stage funding to startups for “proof of concept, prototype development, product trials, market entry and commercialization,” implementing body Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) said in its notification. Startups across sectors registered with the DPIIT and incorporated not more than two years ago at the time of applying for the scheme will be eligible for securing capital. The funding will be disbursed through selected incubators assisted by the central government or state governments.

“We are on course to implement the scheme wef 1 April ‘21,” DPIIT Joint Secretary Anil Agrawal tweeted on Friday. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had earlier this month announced the seed fund at the Startup India’s international summit Prarambh. In his address, PM Modi had said that the government is taking steps to ensure that there is no shortage of capital for startups and that the government will also help startups to raise debt capital ahead by providing the guarantee.

Apart from the two-year incorporation window, DPIIT said that preference would be given to startups offering solutions in sectors including social impact, waste management, water management, financial inclusion, education, agriculture, food processing, biotechnology, healthcare, energy, mobility, defence, space, railways, oil and gas, textiles, etc. Also, eligible startups should not have received over Rs 10 lakh of monetary support under any other Central or State Government scheme and that founders should have at least 51 per cent stake at the time of application to the incubator for the scheme.

The selected incubators will disburse up to Rs 20 lakhs as grant to startups for their validation of proof of concept, or prototype development, or product trials. This grant will be disbursed in milestone-based installments that can be related to the development of prototype, product testing, building a product ready for market launch, etc. Further, up to Rs 50 lakhs will be offered to startups for market entry, commercialization, or scaling up through convertible debentures or debt or debt-linked instruments.

The government also announced eligibility criteria for incubators assisted by the central government or state governments to participate in the scheme that included at least two years of operability on the date of applying for the scheme, capacity to seat at least 25 individuals, at least five startups undergoing incubation at the time of application of the scheme. The scheme will be executed and monitored by an Experts Advisory Committee (EAC) to be set-up by DPIIT. EAC will evaluate incubators to provide grants of up to Rs 5 crore in milestone-based three or more installments.

Picture from freepik.com

Using OpenAI GPT-3 to write E-Commerce Product Descriptions

Featured Article: Author: Raj Bhatt, CEO, Knowledge Foundry The ProblemWriting e-commerce product descriptions has traditionally been a manual process. This activity necessitates a substantial amount of creative effort given the hundreds of new products produced by each brand/marketplace each year. While large companies use copywriters to create these product descriptions, many smaller companies opt for […]

European Union to revamp Cybersecurity rules

EU last year recorded around 450 cyber incidents involving European infrastructure, notably in the financial and energy sectors, and the pandemic has highlighted Europe’s deep dependence on the internet and exposed security weaknesses. The European Union unveiled Wednesday plans to revamp the 27-nation bloc’s dated cybersecurity rules, just days after data on a new coronavirus vaccine was unlawfully accessed in […]

HCM Decision Making powered by Talent Sciences

Talent Science is the business capability of using advanced data analysis techniques and predictive models to drive HCM decision making. It calls for a logical connection between decisions about people, HR program investments and strategic business outcomes. This can form a backbone of human resource function of all organizations independent of the sector in which it operates. […]

Daimler India opens new GCC

Daimler India Commercial Vehicles (DICV) has opened a new Global Capability Centre in Chennai with 165 seats to meet growing demand for Indian-based shared services. Spread over 20,000 sq.ft., the facility is designed to house the company’s ‘shared services’ business stream. Shared services refers to the various services DICV exports to other Daimler entities around […]

India's largest platform and marketplace for GCCs & AI

3AI Digital Library