Central Govt proposes FoF for deep-tech startups

The central government has floated a draft national deep tech startup policy proposing changes across nine themes including access to funding, strengthening the intellectual property regime, sustaining deep tech startups, and enabling shared infrastructure and resource sharing. Among the steps proposed is the setting up of a dedicated 'deep tech capital guidance' fund in which the government, private limited partners, and foreign investors anchor certain commitments to a new fund or an existing fund in the form of a fund-of-fund (FoF) structure. The draft policy, for which stakeholder comments have been sought till September 15, has considered 10 sub-sectors in the deep tech ecosystem. These include segments such as technology hardware such as 3D printing and semiconductor manufacturing; enterprise software; artificial intelligence; internet of things; robotics and security solutions.