Start-ups to soon start getting capital from Uttar Pradesh Startup Fund

The Uttar Pradesh Startup Fund is fast gaining traction and will soon start disbursing growth capital to the state-based entities. The fund has garnered interests from the country's leading alternative investment funds, including venture funds, a government spokesman said here on Friday.

The spokesman added that SIDBI, the designated fund manager for the fund, has so far received four applications from AIFs for an aggregate amount of Rs 285 crore to create the initial corpus.

The decision on these applications will soon be taken by SIDBI and the Startup Nodal Agency in its first Venture Capital Investment Committee (VCIC) meeting scheduled to be held this month, he said.

The government has also released Rs 41 lakh to the Startup Nodal Agency to be disbursed to start-ups and incubators whose proposals were already approved by the Policy Implementation Committee (PIU), the spokesman said.

He also added that the money will be disbursed to start-ups in the form of sustenance allowance at idea stage, seed capital assistance at commercialisation stage and the capital grant to incubators for strengthening the IT infrastructure within their premises to be utilised by start-ups and other stakeholders.

A corpus of Rs 150 crore has also been set up by the government with the help of Abdul Kalam Technical University (AKTU) to fund start-ups at the stage of ideation, patent registration, and participation in domestic and international events, among others.

Apart from resolving the funding woes, the state's start-up policy also promises to create a robust ecosystem to grow and nurture innovative ideas by setting up 100 incubators, at least one in each district.

Many academic institutions, such as Banaras Hindu University, High Tech Institute, ABES Engineering College, Krishna Engineering College, and Jaipuria Institute of Management, have also shown interest in setting up incubators under the policy to support start-ups, he said.

Policy also focusses on giving wings to dreams of Divyangjan, women and transgender communities by offering additional incentives and creating employment opportunities for them through this new start-up policy.

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This is one-of-its-kind initiative by any state government in the country to bring these communities into the mainstream of the business world through startup ecosystem, the spokesman said.