What are Grants? 

The NRDC proposes to participate in the equity share capital of start-up and early stage growth focused, innovative companies. It proposes to invest in innovative entrepreneurs at the crucial stage where the ventures are just getting off the ground. It is high stake investing, which can result in unexpected returns. The NRDC attempts to create the best possible environment for high impact entrepreneurs to start and grow their business. The scheme supports innovations that has the potential to build and shape the development of technology driven entrepreneurs. Through this scheme, the NRDC would select start ups and early stage companies and provides a part of the capital required, as Seed funding to innovators, who prima facie have the potential to develop into significant technical and commercial entities.

Micro Units Development Refinance Agency (MUDRA) banks have been created to enhance credit facilities and boost the growth of small businesses in rural areas. The government has introduced this scheme to support small businesses in India. In 2015, the government allocated INR 10,000 crores to promote startup culture in the country. The MUDRA banks provide startup loans of up to INR 10 lakhs to small enterprises, and businesses, which are non-corporate, and non-farm small/micro-enterprises. MUDRA comes under Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana (PMMY) which was launched on 8 April 2015. The loans have been categorized as Tarun, Kishore, and Shishu. The assets are created through the bank’s finance and there is no collateral security. Under the aegis of Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana (PMMY), MUDRA has created products/ schemes. The interventions have been named 'Shishu', 'Kishore' and 'Tarun' to signify the stage of growth / development and funding needs of the beneficiary micro unit / entrepreneur and also provide a reference point for the next phase of graduation / growth to look forward to : Shishu : covering loans upto 50,000/- Kishor : covering loans above 50,000/- and upto 5 lakh Tarun : covering loans above 5 lakh and upto 10 lakh

In order to enhance the competitive strength of SMEs, the scheme provides financial incentives to those SMEs/ancillary undertakings that have acquired ISO 9000/ISO 14001/HACCP certification through reimbursement of the expenditure incurred. The scheme is enlarged so as to include reimbursement of expenses in the acquisition of ISO 14001 certification.

Biotechnological research and development in India is largely carried out by academic institutions (universities/research organizations) and to some extent by industry (mostly large companies). By virtue of their strong infrastructure & technical capability academic/ research establishments are mandated to research on variety of problems of national importance and societal relevance. Also, unlike industry, research by academia is not governed by commercial gains alone thus allowing them to work on problems involving even high degree of risk. To encourage/support academia to develop technology/product (up to PoC stage) of societal/ national importance and its subsequent validation by an industrial partner, BIRAC has launched PACE (Promoting Academic Research Conversion to Enterprise). The scheme has two components as below: 1. Academic Innovation Research (AIR): The objective of Academic Innovation Research (AIR) scheme is to promote development of Proof-of-concept (PoC) for a process/product by academia with or without the involvement of industry. 2.Contract Research Scheme (CRS): Contract Research Scheme (CRS) aims at validation of a process or prototype (developed by the academia) by the industrial partner.

BIRAC has launched the Product Commercialization Program Fund (PCP Fund) under the BIRAC Product Commercialization Program (PCP). To hasten the market launching and large scale commercialization process of BIRAC supported products/ technologies from Start-ups having high commercial potential or societal impact by providing financial assistance by way of Grant-in-Aid assistance.

This non-profit supports early-stage social entrepreneurs in the first 0-5 years. Selected enterprises are provided induction workshops, helped with milestone setting, offered personalized coaching, site visits, networking, funding, and other support

Venture Capital Fund is a Social Sector Initiative to be implemented nationally in order to promote entrepreneurship among the Scheduled Castes population in India. “Entrepreneurship” relates to entrepreneurs managing businesses which are oriented towards innovation and growth technologies. The spirit of the above mentioned fund is to support those entrepreneurs who will create wealth and value for society and at the same time promoting profitable business.

Numaligarh Refinery Limited (NRL) in 2017, launched an initiative called ‘NRL iDEATION’ with a mission to provide a robust platform for the startup eco-system in the NE region, by providing incubation, mentoring & funding to ideas based on ‘Original Thinking’.