SIDBI Venture Capital Fund to invest Rs 150 crore in SME in next 3-4 months

NEW DELHI: SIDBI Venture Capital Fund, a subsidiary of Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI), is planning to invest about Rs 150 crore of SME Growth Fund in the next 3-4 months.

"Of the first disbursement (by the government) of Rs 500 crore, we have already committed Rs 350 crore," SIDBI Chairman and Managing Director S Muhnot said here.

Remaining Rs 150 crore would be utilised in the next 3-4 months, he said.

The bank's first SME Growth Fund was set up a corpus of Rs 500 crore to invest in small and medium industries.

Last year, the government had committed Rs 5,000 crore India Opportunities Venture Fund with SIDBI to enhance availability of equity to Micro Small and Medium Enterprises ( MSME) sector.

Meanwhile, SIDBI has signed an MoU with Social Fund of Development of Egypt to undertake SME sector Development projects in that country.

Under the agreement, he said, SIDBI will provide expertise and share knowledge and experience on cluster development and venture capital for SME. Besides, the agreement also proposes to provide risk management and appraisals with regard to SME sector among others.

SIDBI will help the Egyptian authority to help set-up credit guarantee trust fund in line with India, he said.