SIDBI Selects Eight More Funds Under Startup India Action Plan

The Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) will invest about $64 Mn (INR 428 Cr) in eight venture funds, as defined under the Startup India Action Plan.

SIDBI is the principal development financial institution for promotion, financing and development of industries in the MSME sector, and for coordinating the functions of other institutions engaged in similar activities.

SIDBI’s Venture Capital Investment Committee (VCIC) screened 13 proposals from VC funds on Tuesday. VCIC comprises former Mohandas Pai, Kiran Karnik (former Nasscom chief), and Indian Angel Network founder Saurabh Srivastava among others.

The committee recommended eight proposals for an aggregate corpus support of about $64 Mn (INR 428 Cr) from the fund, cleared by the cabinet last month. The total targeted corpus of these eight funds is about $470 Mn (INR 3,130 Cr).

The funds that were screened work in the areas of internet of things (IoT), artificial intelligence, healthcare, consumer media, fintech, data analytics, cyber security, digital media, machine learning and agri-related businesses.

The selected funds still have to be get the final approval from SIDBI’s executive board, for all purposes. A SIDBI official stated that these eight will receive the fund support, as rejections after this stage are rare. However, since the final stamp of approval is pending, the names of the funds weren’t disclosed.

In February 2016, reports emerged that SIDBI will be raising the proposed $1.4 Bn (INR 10,000 Cr) corpus for ‘Stand Up India Fund’ from RBI.

SIDBI  has already sanctioned about $25 Mn (INR 168 Cr) to six such funds, while six proposals are under different stages of processing for an aggregate support of $40.5 Mn (INR 271 Cr). The six funds that have previously received support from SIDBI are — GVFL, Kae Capital, Orios Venture Partners, Ideaspring Capital, Parampara Early Stage Opportunities Fund and the IFCI Venture Capital Fund.

The development was reported by ET.