Indian govt announces Rs 1,000 Cr fund to pump space sector startups

Union minister Jitendra Singh has announced a Rs 1,000 crore funding scheme to boost space sector startups. The scheme will help to grow the sector in coming years.

In October last year, the Union Cabinet approved the establishment of the venture capital (VC) fund dedicated to supporting India’s space sector. 

The Rs 10,000 crore corpus will be managed by SIDBI Venture Capital, which aims to support space technology startups in scaling up and becoming globally competitive, while addressing the challenge of risk capital.

The fund will deploy the amount over a period of five years, with Rs 150 crore deployment earmarked for 2025-26 financial year, followed by Rs 250 crore each in the next three financial years, and Rs 100 crore in 2029-30.

“For the Department of Space, the budgetary allocation has increased from Rs 5,615 crore to Rs 13,416 crore, which is 138% more. This is only the contribution of the government. The pool is much larger because we have opened up the space sector,” said Jitendra Singh, union minister of India.

The Indian Space Policy, approved in April 2023, aims to boost the Indian space economy by encouraging private sector participation, focusing on research and development activities and providing access to public sector infrastructure and expertise.