The government plans to increase investments in startups by boosting the amount allocated to the Fund of Funds for Startups (FFS) and also start a quarterly review to assess their issues and support their needs. The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade wants to increase the corpus of the Rs 10,000-crore FFS and will take up the matter with the finance ministry, officials said.

“We are writing to the finance ministry to give us more funds this year and ask for a fairly high amount next year,” said an official aware of the plan.

Department officials recently met executives of the Small Industrial Development Bank of India, which is the fund manager for the StartUp India programme that started in January 2016. Sidbi has so far cleared about 300 funding applications.

Officials said there is demand from Sidbi to double the FFS corpus and to allocate a higher amount of Rs1,300-1,400 crore from Rs 600-700 crore now. “We’re examining this to see our course of action,” the official said.

The bank has committed Rs3,123.2 crore to 49 Alternative Investment Funds registered with the Securities and Exchange Board of India, which in turn have invested Rs 1,625.73 crore in 247 startups as of June end.

The FFS is to be built up over the terms of the 14th and 15th Finance Commissions (2015-2020 and 2020-2025) and its corpus was set to have reached Rs 10,000 crore by March 2025. DPIIT is the monitoring agency for FFS, while Sidbi is the operating agency.

The department also plans to hold quarterly reviews with startups to assess their needs and the issues they face. Separately, it plans to hold a national convention early next to meet seed funds and successful startups.

“We’re also planning a national convention of startups because it has been four years since it was done. Some time by February, we plan to do the major event,” the official added.

Promoting tie-ups with cooperatives and Kendriya Bhandars to give retail space to product startups is an idea that’s also being considered.

The department will meet startups – initially those based in and around New Delhi – to understand what have they done right to be successful in the commercial space and what support they need.