India launches ₹10,000 crore fund

India has moved its ₹10,000 crore startup fund from cabinet approval to operating rules, laying out how the money will actually reach founders. (livemint.com) The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade approved Startup India Fund of Funds 2.0 on February 14, 2026, and issued implementation guidelines on April 25. The scheme will not invest directly in startups. (pib.gov.in) (livemint.com) Instead, the government will commit capital to Securities and Exchange Board of India-registered Alternative Investment Funds, which then invest in Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade-recognized startups. Small Industries Development Bank of India will act as the initial implementation agency. (livemint.com) The guidelines divide eligible funds into four buckets: deep-tech, smaller early-growth funds, tech-driven manufacturing, and sector-agnostic funds. Each bucket gets its own cap, tenure, and minimum private-capital multiplier. (livemint.com) Deep-tech funds can get government backing of up to 40% of corpus, capped at ₹500 crore, with a maximum tenure of 18 years. Smaller early-stage funds can get up to 30%, capped at ₹100 crore, while manufacturing funds are capped at ₹200 crore and sector-agnostic funds at ₹180 crore. (livemint.com) The new program builds on the first Fund of Funds for Startups, launched in 2016. Under that earlier scheme, the full ₹10,000 crore corpus was committed to 145 Alternative Investment Funds, which invested more than ₹25,500 crore in over 1,370 startups. (pib.gov.in) The government says India now has more than 200,000 recognized startups, up from fewer than 500 when Startup India began in 2016. It also said 2025 recorded the highest annual startup registrations on record. (pib.gov.in) Private capital is still moving at the same time. TechCrunch reported on April 25 that Bengaluru-based Snabbit is close to raising about $50 million, possibly more than $55 million, at a valuation of around $400 million in a round led by Susquehanna Venture Capital. (techcrunch.com) TechCrunch said Mirae Asset, FJ Labs, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Bertelsmann India Investments are expected to join the round. It said Snabbit’s valuation would more than double from the $180 million valuation attached to its October 2025 fundraise. (techcrunch.com) That overlap shows two financing tracks now running in parallel in India: public money aimed at widening the venture pipeline, and private money chasing fast-growing categories such as on-demand home services. The fund rules are now set; the next test is which managers and startups get picked first. (livemint.com) (techcrunch.com)