MUMBAI:
Venture capital funds
registered with
Sebi
will now be supported by
Sidbi
(Small Industries Development Bank of India), which has been assigned a fund with a corpus of Rs 60 crore to invest in
startups
in the rural and agro space.
The fund is a part of a major initiative by the ministry of medium and small enterprises (
MSME
), under "A Scheme for Promotion of Innovation and Rural Entrepreneurship and agro industry (
ASPIRE
)" with an aggregate corpus of Rs 200 crore for promoting innovation and rural entrepreneurship through rural livelihood business incubators, technology business incubators and fund of funds.
"The ASPIRE Fund is just one of the many steps in providing the necessary support environment to unleash the true potential of MSME," said Kalraj Mishra, minister of MSME, at the launch event of the fund. He highlighted the need to develop the skill of the youth especially in the rural areas and provide technology inputs to the sector to make them more efficient and competitive.
Kshatrapati Shivaji, CMD, Sidbi mentioned that there are a good number of venture capital funds operating in the agro and rural space and the ASPIRE Fund corpus would be effectively deployed towards bringing about growth and development of MSMEs in the agro and rural space.
He said that Rs 19.50 crore has already been sanctioned to two venture capital funds and one more proposal for commitment of contribution of Rs 10 crore is under process.
Apart from the ASPIRE Fund, Sidbi is also managing India Aspiration Fund under which it has extended an aggregate support of Rs 1211.75 crore and a Fund of Funds for Startups (FFS) under the
Startup Action Plan
under which three funds have been given commitments aggregating Rs 105 crore.
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