{"id":87495,"date":"2026-02-16T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/enterpriseam.com\/mena-india\/2026\/02\/16\/government-backs-deep-tech-with-second-phase-of-startup-india-fund\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T00:00:00","slug":"government-backs-deep-tech-with-second-phase-of-startup-india-fund","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/enterpriseam.com\/mena-india\/2026\/02\/16\/government-backs-deep-tech-with-second-phase-of-startup-india-fund\/","title":{"rendered":"Government backs deep tech with second phase of Startup India fund"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"padding:0;margin:0;line-height:1.15;orphans:2;widows:2;text-align:left\"> <strong>The<\/strong><strong> Indian government has cleared a corpus of INR 100 bn (USD 1.1 bn) under a fund of funds<\/strong> to mobilize venture capital for India\u2019s startup ecosystem, according to the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pib.gov.in\/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2227988&reg=3&lang=1\" style=\"\">Press Information Bureau<\/a>. This is the second iteration of the Startup India initiative, which catalyzed investments from Gulf SWFs, including QIA, Adia, and PIF. <\/p>\n<p style=\"padding:0;margin:0;line-height:1.15;orphans:2;widows:2;text-align:left\"><strong>A successful predecessor: <\/strong>The earlier fund of funds launched in 2016 invested over INR 255 bn (USD 2.81 bn) in more than 1.3k startups through 145 alternative investment funds. <\/p>\n<p style=\"padding:0;margin:0;line-height:1.15;orphans:2;widows:2;text-align:left\"><strong>Startup India 2.0 will take a more targeted approach<\/strong>, focusing on deep tech, tech-led manufacturing, and early-growth startups, while expanding funding beyond major metros into smaller cities. The fund is designed to address the high-risk capital gap and strengthen smaller domestic venture funds.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding:0;margin:0;line-height:1.15;orphans:2;widows:2;text-align:left\"><strong>Why this matters: <\/strong>State-backed capital provides a safety net for high-risk, long-gestation sectors. As the UAE and Saudi Arabia push to become global hubs for AI and advanced manufacturing, this creates a pipeline of de-risked joint investment windows in hardware and AI for MENA investors. <\/p>\n<p style=\"padding:0;margin:0;line-height:1.15;orphans:2;widows:2;text-align:left\">(<strong>** Tap or click the headline above to read this story with all of the links<\/strong> to our background and outside sources.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The fund seeks to mobilize long-term domestic capital for deep tech, manufacturing, and early-growth startups<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":87496,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"single-feature.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":false,"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_primary_brand":0,"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2603],"tags":[2402,2602,2472,2471,2656],"brand":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"class_list":["post-87495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-policy-watch","tag-enterpriseam-india","tag-policy-watch","tag-startup-watch","tag-startups","tag-venture-capital","wpautop","entry"],"acf":{"mongo_id":"e81519ae-092d-43b8-a348-7d9cfd109906","order":"4","is_powered_by":false,"story_type":"1","photo_url":"https:\/\/ent.news\/2025\/4\/1738.jpg","photo_position":"above","homepage_title":"","full_issue_title":"Modi government clears Startup India Fund 2.0 with INR 100 bn corpus","related_issue":[87489],"teaser":"The fund seeks to mobilize long-term domestic capital for deep tech, manufacturing, and early-growth startups"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.1 (Yoast SEO v27.1.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Government backs deep tech with second phase of Startup India fund - MENA India Corridors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/enterpriseam.com\/mena-india\/2026\/02\/16\/government-backs-deep-tech-with-second-phase-of-startup-india-fund\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Government backs deep tech with second phase of Startup India fund\" \/>\n<meta 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