Webel VC fund to be refinanced

Webel would aim to fund its newly floated venture capital fund from internal accruals besides expecting a second installment of Rs4 crore from the state government within March 2009.

A corpus of Rs 25 crore had been sanctioned for the Webel Venture Capital Limited (WVCL) floated earlier this year and funds worth Rs 4 crore were already disbursed by the state government. WVCL was a wholly owned subsidiary of Webel, the nodal agency for promoting IT, IT enabled services(ITeS), electronics and semi-conductor industries in the state.

Debanjan Dutta, managing director of Webel said here that they were expecting a second installment of Rs4 crore from the state government by March next year. "Webel could also pump in funds into WVCL to keep it alive for the coming two to three years. We had made a profit of Rs 32 crore in FY08 and funds are not a problem", he added.

Around four to five companies in the areas of education, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology, and semi-conductors have already been funded by WVCL. "One start-up company recently funded was working in the area of mobile phone short messege service(SMS) technology in conjuction with a tourism company", Dutta informed.