AgriSURE (Agri Fund for Start-ups & Rural Enterprises) Scheme
Posted 12 Sep 2024
Updated 14 Sep 2024
3 min read
Why in the News?
Recently, Minister for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare and Rural Development launched the AgriSURE (Agri Fund for Start-ups & Rural Enterprises) Scheme.
Objective
Features
To attract more investment in the agri and rural start-up ecosystem by making contribution to various Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs).
To provide liquidity to existing Agri & Agri-tech start-ups that are unable to upscale their business due to dearth of access to various kinds of financing like equity, debt instruments, etc.
Encourage young entrepreneurs to take high-risk, while engaging in high-impact activities in agriculture and Agri-tech.
To give a boost to opportunities for profitable forward and backward linkage systems making farm produce value chain system stronger and bring in new entrepreneurs into field of agri-business.
To enlist more players in the farm related ecosystem for enabling Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs)/ Farmer Producer Companies (FPCs)/Primary Cooperative Societies to access latest automated farm processes and machinery through Agri tech Start-ups.
To create additional employment opportunities for the technically qualified rural and urban youth to look up to agriculture as a business opportunity.
Retain existing rural youth in agriculture and encourage younger generation to take to agriculture by providing newer technologies, techniques and equipment’s at their doorsteps from time to time.
Background: It was announced in Budget 2022-23
Aim: To support innovative, technology driven, high-risk, high-impact activities in agriculture and allied areas
Sponsoring agencies : Government of India and NABARD
Total Corpus: ₹750 crore (Fund is registered as a Category-II Alternative Investment Fund with SEBI.)
The Fund has two schemes
AgriSURE – FoF Scheme:
Aim:-funding support to Category I and Category II AIFs that make onward investments in Start-ups. It will invest in SEBI-registered sector agnostic, sector-specific and debt AIFs
Corpus:- : ₹450 crore
Maximum investment in a single AIF: 5% of the corpus of AIF or ₹25 crore, whichever is lower.
AgriSURE – Direct Scheme:
Aim: direct equity investment in early-stage Start-ups that are recognized by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) and are incorporated in India.
Corpus: ₹300 crore
Maximum investment in a single Start-up: ₹25 crore subject to AIF Regulations.
Duration of Fund: 10 years from date of inception, extendable by two years
Target Beneficiaries
Support about 85 Start-ups by the end of the Fund life
Start-ups working in agriculture and rural development include but are not limited to:-
Agri-tech, food processing, animal husbandry, fisheries, supply chain management, farm mechanisation, biotechnology, waste management, renewable energy, agri value chain including primary cooperative societies development, support for FPOs, technology support at farm level and climate change.
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