At a time when startups are facing “funding winter”, the International Financial Service Centre Authority (IFSCA) will start giving Fintech grants from early next year to Indian innovators. IFSCA Chief Technology Officer Joseph Joshy said Indian Fintechs have started applying for the IFSCA Fintech Incentive Scheme, 2022, which has six types of grants.
“We have an external committee which will be looking into these applications. Probably, from early next year, the grants will start flowing,” he said on the sidelines of Singapore Fintech Festival (SFF) held 2-4 Nov 2022.The grants are for bootstrap innovators, and range between Rs 15 lakh to Rs 75 lakh, Joshy said, adding that the grants are timely but cannot be compared to Venture Capitalists’ investment sizes that run into millions of dollars. Industry observers at SFF said the funding winter, made worse by the US recession, will see some 50-60 per cent of the startups, including Fintechs, facing a bleak future.