Focus on MSME, startups increases, Rs 300 crore funds sanctioned

Lending institution, Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI), recently cleared the sanction requests of nine funds aggregating Rs 300 crore. This move was made to show a significant upsurge in the fund of funds operations focused on MSME and startups. SIDBI manages several fund of funds, including the Rs 10,000 crore corpus kept for startups. As a manager of these funds, it had constituted a (Venture Capital Investment Committee (VCIC), which includes experts like Mohandas Pai, Sanjeev Bikchandani, Saurabh Srivastava, H.K.Mittal, Prof. Vaidyanathan, Kiran Karnik.

SIBDI has seen a surge in the fund of funds operations as seen from the number of funds supported by SIDBI during the current financial year. During FY15 and FY16, sanctions were made to 11 funds (Rs 314 crore) and 16 funds (Rs 607 crore), respectively while the number during the current FY has already crossed Rs 1112 crore to 30 funds.

The government had announced establishment of Rs 10,000 crore fund of funds to support AIFs who invest in Startups. This money will be released spread over two finance commission cycles (14th and 15th till 2025) based on the scheme’s progress. An amount of Rs 500 crore has been released so far to SIDBI which is managing the programme.