The Small Industries Development Bank of India (Sidbi) has chosen eight venture funds to invest in startups as defined under the Startup India Action Plan and will support them with a corpus amount of Rs 428 crore.

Sidbi’s Venture Capital Investment Committee (VCIC), which comprises former Infosys CFO Mohandas Pai, Former Nasscom Chief Kiran Karnik, and Indian Angel Network Founder Saurabh Srivastava among others, had screened 13 proposals from VC funds on July 12.

The committee recommended 8 proposals for an aggregate corpus support of around Rs 428 crore from the Fund of Funds for Startups as announced by PM Modi earlier this year and cleared by the cabinet last month. The total targeted corpus of these eight funds is Rs 3,130 crore.

While the selected funds still have to be given the final approval by Sidbi’s executive board, for all purposes, these eight will receive the fund support from Sidbi, an official said, citing that rejections after this stage were rare. Sidbi picks eight ventures to invest Rs 428 cr in startups.

The six funds that have already received support from Sidbi to invest in startups are — GVFL, Kae Capital, Orios Venture Partners, Ideaspring Capital, Parampara Early Stage Opportunities Fund and the IFCI Venture Capital Fund’s funds for SME advantage.

Sidbi’s CMD Kshatrapati Shivaji said the funds that were screened on July 12 were focused on several areas of innovation, including internet of things (IoT), artificial intelligence, healthcare, consumer media, fintech, data analytics, cyber security, digital media, machine learning and agri-related businesses.

Source: The Economic Times