ACT program launched by the start-up community

The start-ups in India have collectively launched the ACT (Action COVID-19 Team) project with 100 crore INR grants to speed up initiatives to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

About the Program

The ACT or Active COVID-19 Team is a program launched collectively by the start-up community. The program was launched with the following objectives:

• Provision of guidance and resources to start-ups involved in projects related to COVID-19.
• Provision of mentoring and financial grants to expedite the fight against the pandemic.
• Expediting the scaling up of solutions to the COVID-19 situation that show promise.
• Creating a force multiplier to help initiatives make rapid progress.

Working of the Program

The ACT will work with a grant of 100 crore INR. It will focus on start-up projects that are relevant in the fight against the pandemic- in areas like support for hospitals and healthcare workers, mental health support, testing, disease management, etc. The grant money will be used for seeding more than 50 initiatives to speed up the results. The program is to be supported by NGOs and industrial players also.

AIF

The Union Minister of Commerce and Industry had recently proposed the frontloading of funds from Fund of Funds to help address the liquidity crunch in the start-up sector. The Fund of Funds provides capital to the AIF or Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs). The AIFs, which are also called daughter funds, invest in the start-ups. AIFs are private funds for investment that are registered under SEBI. The category I AIFs are generally used for investment in the start-up sector.