India has cleared a $1.1 billion state-backed venture capital program that will channel government money into startups through private investors, doubling down on its effort to finance high-risk areas such as artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing and other sectors broadly referred to by the industry as deep tech. First outlined in the January 2025 budget speech by India's finance minister, the '100 billion fund won cabinet approval this week (more than a year after the speech), allowing the government to move ahead with deployment. A previous iteration of the program, launched in 2016, committed '100 billion to 145 private funds that have invested more than '255 billion (about $2.8 billion) in over 1,370 startups, according to official data released on Saturday. The program is structured as a fund of funds, a common venture capital model in which governments back startups indirectly by committing capital to private investment firms. It is designed to take a more targeted...
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