Sidbi VC fund gets Rs 670 cr for India Opportunity Fund

Sidbi Venture Capital Fund has received commitment for Rs 670-crore funding from financial institutions as part of its fund raising for the India Opportunity Fund, which is likely to be closed soon.

Sidbi Venture Capital is a subsidiary of the state-run Small Industries Development Bank of India (Sidbi).

"We have received commitment of Rs 670 crore for the India Opportunity Fund as of now and are planning to close it soon," Sidbi Venture Chief Executive Ananta P Sarma said.

He declined to give any timeline for the closure.

Earlier the fund house, that focuses on investing in SMEs, had a plan to raise Rs 1,000 crore for the India Opportunity Fund.

"We had a plan of raising around Rs 1,000 crore from this round. However, we will not drag it further and will close it soon," Sarma said, adding most of the commitment has come from the public sector banks.

This is the second fund from Sidbi in the SME space. Its SME Growth Fund, with a Rs 500-crore corpus, had invested in the sector and is currently under divestment phase.

On whether it will launch any new fund in the current fiscal, Sarma said the fund house will definitely consider it if need arises.

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.