National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development is an All India Financial Institution that  announced the plans of its arm to launch a Rs 750 crore agri fund to help startups and rural enterprises.  This subsidiary of NADARD, NABVENTURES announced that the fund is called agri-SURE and will have  an initial corpus of Rs 750 crore with Rs 250 crore each from the Ministry of Agriculture and NABARD.  The remaining Rs 250 crore will be from other institutions. 

The initiative is taken by the organization to help startups and promote investment in technology driven, innovative, and high-risk activities in agriculture and similar sectors. NABVENTURES will  manage the fund and support around 85 agri startups with an investment of around Rs 25 crore per  startup. These startups will be offered mentorship and offer funds to help them cover service costs  such as packaging, and logistics. This fund will be used to support the startups through investments in  sector-specific, sector-agnostic, and debt Alternative Investment Funds. The company will also offer  direct equity support to startups when needed. The Indian startup ecosystem is expected to grow  rapidly in the next few years this is why the government is trying to help small companies to scale by  helping them with funds. 

The government aims to enhance the agri-produce value chains by creating new rural ecosystem  linkages & infrastructure. The scaling up of a company will generate more employment and support  Farmer-produced organizations. The fund also aims to encourage businesses through IT technologies,  machinery rental services, and advanced solutions. This focuses on driving sustainable growth with  the development of the agriculture sector. The main focus of Agri-SURE is to help these startups and  promote innovative and tech-driven initiatives in the agriculture sector. 

The government of India has been trying various programs to help the startup ecosystem grow. Earlier  this year, ONDC launched a DigiReady Certification Portal in partnership with the QualityCouncil of  India to enable small businesses to go digital. The portal enables small enterprises to join the ONDC  platform as sellers. Various known startups including Paytm, Ola, Meeship, and PhoePE already  integrated some of their services with ONDC. The announcement by NABARD came just after the  Indian Agritech sector saw an increase in its growth rate with the huge interest of investors in this  sector. 

Conclusion: 

The wholly-owned subsidiary of National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development NABAVENTURES  plans to launch Rs 750 crore agri funds for Indian startups. The fund aims to help small and micro  businesses scale up while promoting investment in technology-driven, innovative, and high-risk  activities in agriculture. The organization will also offer direct equity support to startups. Agri-SURE  aims to promote innovative and tech-driven solutions in the agriculture sector. The government aims  to enhance the agri-produce value chains by creating new rural ecosystem linkages & infrastructure.  The Indian government has taken several initiatives to boost its startup landscape. Last month, ONDC  also launched a platform in collaboration with the Quality Council of India to help startups go digital.