Fund of Funds for Startups(FFS)

Overview

About FFS

The Fund of Funds for Startups does not put money into a startup's bank account. It commits capital to venture funds, and those funds pick the startups. As on 31 March 2026, SIDBI had committed Rs 11,808 crore to 153 Alternative Investment Funds under FFS, and those funds had invested Rs 22,942 crore in 1,270 startups (SIDBI's Fund of Funds page).

A founder cannot file an application against any of that. The application belongs to the fund.

FFS is an equity programme that operates one level above the startup. The Union Cabinet approved it on 22 June 2016 with a corpus of Rs 10,000 crore, contribution spread over the 14th and 15th Finance Commission cycles (PIB, 22 March 2017); SIDBI dates the unveiling to January 16, 2016, in line with the Startup India Action Plan (SIDBI). DPIIT monitors the scheme and SIDBI operates it, selecting the daughter funds and overseeing disbursal of the committed capital (PIB, 3 February 2023).

The mechanism is a multiplier, not a subsidy. A fund that takes a commitment must put at least twice that amount into startups: a fund seeking Rs 100 crore from FFS undertakes to invest at least Rs 200 crore in startups (SIDBI). The government's rupee is there to pull private rupees in behind it.

Anyone quoting a running total for FFS has to pick between three government figures, and picking one means contradicting the other two. PIB reported net commitments of Rs 9,994 crore to 141 AIFs as on 30 June 2025 (PIB, 25 July 2025). The Cabinet note of 14 February 2026 recorded the entire Rs 10,000 crore corpus as committed to 145 AIFs, which had invested over Rs 25,500 crore in more than 1,370 startups (PMIndia). SIDBI's dashboard, dated later than either, puts commitments at Rs 11,808 crore to 153 AIFs and investment at Rs 22,942 crore in 1,270 startups as on 31 March 2026 (SIDBI). Only PIB labels its figure a net number. Nothing published alongside the three explains why SIDBI's commitment total runs above the Rs 10,000 crore corpus, or why its startup count sits below the one the Cabinet gave for an earlier date, so quote whichever you use with its date attached.

In commitment terms that corpus is closed. Fresh money for funds runs through Startup India Fund of Funds 2.0, which came into force on 13 April 2026 with its own Rs 10,000 crore corpus committed across the 16th and 17th Finance Commission cycles (PIB, 13 April 2026; SIDBI).

Who runs it

Provider

At a glance

Key details

Calendar

Important dates

FFS never ran to an application window. The scheme record carries an opening date and no closing date, so the entries below are milestones rather than deadlines, and with FFS 1.0's corpus committed the live door for a fund is now FoF 2.0.

Money reaches the implementation agency on an annual projection basis, against the drawdowns it submits to DPIIT for each financial year (DPIIT operational guidelines). The pace of fresh sanctions follows that schedule rather than a calendar an applicant fund can plan around.

Who can apply

Eligibility criteria

The eligibility test is written for a fund manager and it stays a fund-management test throughout. A fund qualifies for an FFS contribution if it is registered as a Category I or Category II AIF with SEBI or has applied for that registration, holds a corpus below Rs 1,000 crore, writes startup investment into its strategy, and accepts the 2X commitment. The team gate is separate and personal: every key member, meaning a director, sponsor or senior person of the fund, needs a CIBIL score above 650 and must be legally able to hold a directorship or a managerial post in India (SIDBI).

The startup-side test is not run by SIDBI at all. The fund applies it, against the DPIIT definition in Gazette Notification G.S.R.127(E) of 19 February 2019 (SIDBI). A company either fits that notification on the day the fund writes its cheque or it does not, and there is no separate FFS eligibility for a founder to satisfy.

Clearing the fund criteria does not entitle a fund to a sanction. SIDBI states plainly that a qualifying application is still considered on the merits of the case after submission (SIDBI).

Who cannot apply

Exclusions

No list of disqualified applicants is published for this scheme, and the reason is structural: what FFS rules out is a route, not a category of applicant. Neither FFS nor its successor invests in a startup directly, and both put money only into the corpus of SEBI-registered Category I and II AIFs (PIB, 3 February 2023; DPIIT operational guidelines, 25 April 2026). A supported fund is capped on how much government money it may hold in total: aggregate contribution from all central and state government fund-of-funds vehicles has to stay within 50% of an AIF's corpus, and the Venture Capital Investment Committee may set that limit lower after a market assessment (DPIIT operational guidelines).

Continuation

Renewal conditions

No part of this scheme runs on an annual cycle that could be renewed. A commitment is drawn down against a signed contribution agreement over the life of the fund, and the FoF 2.0 guidelines cap that life by segment, from 10 years for a micro venture capital fund to 18 years for a deep tech or manufacturing-focused fund (DPIIT operational guidelines).

What you get

Award & benefits

What a selected fund receives is a capital commitment, sized as a share of its own corpus and capped in rupees. Under Startup India FoF 2.0 those caps differ by the segment a fund applies in, and so does the multiplier it has to meet.

The micro venture capital segment carries one condition a founder can read directly: such a fund must state in its placement memorandum that at least 50% of its corpus goes to seed and early-stage funding, with cheques of up to Rs 10 crore per startup (DPIIT operational guidelines).

Where FFS money has actually landed is published by SIDBI. Its impact panel records Rs 2,716 crore invested in 217 startups from Tier 2 and Tier 3 centres, Rs 4,004 crore in 211 women-led or women co-led startups, and Rs 4,897 crore in 279 deep tech startups; 82 AIFs were anchored under FFS, and 58 of those managers were running a fund for the first time (SIDBI). Read alongside the segment table, that last number is the one that says most about who the scheme has been willing to back.

• Equity/ equity linked instruments-based funding to startups.
• Mentorship through experienced AIF managers along with market connects, governance structure.
• Mobilisation of capital, attracting private investors and mobilising larger capital for startups.
• Support for innovation-driven enterprises, fostering job creation and economic growth.
• Strengthens India’s venture capital ecosystem and promotes entrepreneurship.
• AIFs must invest at least twice SIDBI’s contribution creating a multiplier effect, scheme helped mobilise more than ₹90,000 crore through AIF.

What to prepare

Documents required

Every document on the list belongs to the applicant fund: its AIF registration, the investment management agreement and private placement memorandum that define it, its trust deed and accounts, contributor details, past track record, and KYC on the people who run it. Two items look like exceptions and are not. The KYC pack reaches individual PAN and Aadhaar with a CIBIL score attached, but it reaches them as the fund's key personnel, not as founders. The startup certificate is DPIIT recognition the investee company already holds; nothing under FFS issues it.

Taken together the pack settles the three things SIDBI has to be satisfied on before a rupee moves: that the vehicle legally exists and is registered, that its stated strategy matches what it is asking money for, and that the people running it clear the track-record and CIBIL tests. A startup with a question about any of it is pointed to the AIF's own website rather than to a SIDBI form.

Step by step

How to apply

Fund applications are made online. SIDBI's FFS page carries the instruction and links straight through to its venture capital application portal at vcfapplication.sidbi.in (SIDBI), where access is by the applying fund's own login.

Status tracking is where this scheme parts company with the ones it gets confused with. FFS publishes no application-status page, no searchable beneficiary list and no payment trace, because nothing under it is transferred to an individual. The contrast is written into a sibling scheme's own rules: under the Startup India Seed Fund Scheme, all applicants can track the progress of their application on the Startup India portal on a real-time basis, and rejected applicants are notified by email (SISFS guidelines). FFS offers a fund no equivalent, and it offers a startup nothing to track at all.

For a founder the route differs in kind rather than in difficulty. There is no FFS application to make; the capital is reached by raising from a fund that FFS or FoF 2.0 has already backed, on that fund's terms and timetable. SIDBI publishes the funds it has committed to on its commitments page. DPIIT recognition matters by then, because only investment into recognised startups counts towards the fund's multiplier (DPIIT operational guidelines).

How winners are picked

Selection process

Under FoF 2.0 the selection of funds runs in two stages, and neither is a scoring formula. The implementation agency, which is SIDBI, first seeks proposals and conducts due diligence, after which the Venture Capital Investment Committee, made up of external experts from the startup ecosystem alongside the agency's own representatives, hears a detailed presentation from the fund and decides whether to recommend it. A recommended proposal then goes to a sub-committee of the agency's board for sanction, and on sanction a letter of intent is issued and a contribution agreement signed (DPIIT operational guidelines).

The committee is named in public. DPIIT constitutes its external experts, and for FoF 2.0 they include Vallabh Bhansali, Dr Ashok Jhunjhunwala, Dr Renu Swarup, Dr Chintan Vaishnav and Rajesh Gopinathan (PIB, 25 April 2026). What they weigh is the track record of the team, its fund management capability and its investment strategy.

Fine print

Terms & conditions

The conditions that bind a supported fund are financial and continuing. Operating costs of the implementation agency are capped at 0.50% a year of commitments outstanding and are met from the scheme corpus, debited each 1 April and 1 October. Money returned by the funds, both capital redeemed and returns earned, goes back to the Consolidated Fund of India, net of up to 5% of returns earmarked for ecosystem work such as mentorship and shared facilities. Funds sitting temporarily unused with the implementation agency earn interest at the RBI repo rate, credited annually on 31 March and added to the corpus (DPIIT operational guidelines).

Oversight is layered on top. The implementation agency reports annually on every AIF and every investee company with net asset values, DPIIT reviews performance at least half-yearly, an Empowered Committee chaired by the Secretary, DPIIT monitors the scheme, and a third-party evaluation by an independent agency is carried out every five years (DPIIT operational guidelines).

Get help

Contact

SIDBI Fund of Funds works out of 1st Floor, Atma Ram House, Tolstoy Marg, New Delhi-110 001, publishes 011-23448300/339/425/565 as its phone line, and takes email at vcfoperations@sidbi.in (SIDBI Fund of Funds contact page). Policy questions about the scheme itself sit with DPIIT as the monitoring department, while SIDBI answers anything operational about commitments and drawdowns.

Source

Official links

Frequently asked questions

From the official scheme FAQ (myScheme)

Read this

Disclaimer

Disclaimer

Scheme details are compiled from myScheme, the Government of India’s official scheme-discovery platform, and are reproduced without alteration. Amounts, deadlines and eligibility change between cycles, so always confirm on the official links above before applying. Expertie does not process applications or charge fees.

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