Sidbi Venture Capital to close Rs 600 crore India Opportunity Fund

NEW DELHI: Development bank Sidbi today said its venture capital subsidiary has closed Rs 600 crore India Opportunity Fund.

" Sidbi Venture Capital has got fund commitment from various investors including domestic banks and insurance companies. The Rs 600-crore India Opportunity Fund would be operational soon," Sidbi Chairman and Managing Director S Muhnot said here.

Small Industries Development Bank of India (Sidbi) has committed to contribute 30 per cent or Rs 180 crore to the corpus India Opportunity Fund Series I, he said.

The fund would focus on development of the micro, small and medium enterprises ( MSME) sector, he said.

The disbursement would be done across 4-5 years, he said, adding the return expected from the fund is around 15 per cent.

Sidbi Venture Capital has two funds since its inception. The first one, the National Venture Fund for Software and IT Industry, had a corpus of Rs 100 crore.

The development bank's second fund, SME Growth Fund, has a corpus of Rs 500 crore and is at present under divestment phase.

Talking about Sidbi, Muhnot said, the financial institution is working on a new business model in consultation with the government.

The new business model envisages to fill not only financial gap but also non-financial gaps for the MSME sector, he said.

The non-financial gaps include, consultation, advisory services, loan syndication etc.

The financial institution would focus on three core areas including energy efficiency project, receivable finance and lending to services sector.

Besides, Sidbi is also in the process of setting up credit facilitation centres across 100 MSME cluster. Such center will help the MSME units of that location to get funding from banks.