New Delhi: In a major policy reform aimed at enhancing access to innovation capital, the Union Government has scrapped the three-year operational condition previously required for startups seeking support from the Research, Development & Innovation (RDI) Fund. The announcement was made by Union Minister of State for Science & Technology Dr Jitendra Singh at the 41st Foundation Day of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) in New Delhi earlier today.
Under the revised framework, newly incorporated and early-stage startup entities no longer need to wait three years before qualifying to tap the RDI Fund — a flagship ₹1-lakh crore innovation financing initiative approved by the Cabinet in July 2025 to scale deep tech, strategic and sunrise sector research.
The RDI Fund, designed to catalyse private sector investment into research and technology commercialisation, provides long-tenor debt at concessional interest rates and equity financing options for eligible projects. Earlier rules had required startups to be in existence for at least three years before eligibility — a condition critics said gated early innovators from crucial early-stage funding.
With the removal of this tenure threshold, the government hopes to democratise access to RDI financing and encourage a larger pool of innovators to apply. Second-level fund managers appointed under the scheme — including Alternative Investment Funds and development finance institutions — are expected to roll out funding approvals more broadly across sectors once formal notifications are issued.
At the event, Dr Singh underscored the government’s broader agenda of building a globally competitive innovation ecosystem, citing reforms and openings in strategic domains such as nuclear and space sectors to private participants. He said the realigned RDI Fund would play a “central role” in helping start-ups convert research into scaleable solutions that align with national priorities.
The government also unveiled complementary initiatives aimed at strengthening deep-tech clusters and bolstering institutional R&D capacity, including new guidelines for in-house R&D recognition and the rollout of platforms such as PRISM Network Platform TOCIC Innovator Pulse and Creative India 2025.
Start-up ecosystem stakeholders have welcomed the move, saying it could help earlier-stage ventures bridge the notorious “valley of death” between prototype development and commercial scale — a stage that existing RDI Fund parameters originally targeted with support for Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 4 and above.