GVFL aims to raise Rs 500 crore for its SME fund

Co in talks with 8-10 investors mopping up money

GVFL Ltd, fomerly known as Gujarat Venture Finance Limited, aims to raise Rs. 500 crore for its SME Technology Venture Fund. The company, which is widely regarded as the pioneer of venture capital in India, is also scouting investors to get a part of the SME fund corpus.

"Originally, the company had planned to mop up Rs. 250 crore in April 2008, when this fund was launched. Later on, we decide to exercise the 'green shoe' option and hiked the corpus to be raised for this fund to Rs. 500 crore", Mihir Joshi, interim MD, GVFL said on the sidelines VC Circle Investment Forum in Ahmedabad.

So far, the company has already received Rs. 100 crore and the company is expecting 10 per cent of the corpus from government of Gujarat. "We are looking at raising part of funds from investors, both domestic and international", he said

GVFL has already started negotiations with couple of investors. "Talks are on with around 8 to 10 investors, of which three instituitions are based out of US", he revealed. The venture capital firm has struck four deals under SME Technolgy Fund and two more deals are likely to take place in first half of September this year.

The company aims to close this fund by the end of June next year and it expects to deploy funds over the next three to five years from 2010. The SME Fund will focus on information technology (IT), biotechnology and nano technology sectors.

SME fund is the sixth vehicle from GVFL. Earlier it had mopped up Rs. 133 crore through five funds. Till date, GVFL has invested in 72 companies, including 42 from Gujarat and remaining from Maharashtra, Karnataka and Delhi NCR region.