An expert committee set up by SIDBI has sanctioned Rs 300 crore to fund managers who would invest in startups, taking the total sanctions so far this fiscal to over Rs 1,100 crore, the government said today.

During fiscal year 2014-15 and 2015-16 sanctions were made to 11 funds (Rs 314 crores) and 16 funds (Rs 607 crores) respectively while the number during the current financial year has already crossed Rs 1,112 crores to 30 funds.

In its 7th meeting on the February 11, VCIC examined requests from 11 fund managers and cleared sanction requests from 9 Funds aggregating Rs 300 crores.

“It is evident that there is a significant upsurge in the fund of funds operations if seen from the number of funds supported by SIDBI during the current fiscal,” Commerce Ministry said in a statement.

To promote startups, the Cabinet had last year approved the setting up of a ‘Fund of Funds for Startups’ with a corpus of Rs 10,000 crore at SIDBI (Small Industries Development Bank).

This money will be released spread over the 14th and 15th finance commission cycles ending 2025 based on progress under the Scheme.“An amount of Rs 500 crore has been released so far to SIDBI which is managing the programme,” the Ministry said.

SIDBI as manager of these Funds has constituted a Venture Capital Investment Committee (VCIC) which includes external experts — Mohandas Pai, Sanjeev Bikchandani, Saurabh Srivastava, H K Mittal, Prof Vaidyanathan and Kiran Karnik.

Out of the those cleared earlier by VCIC, SIDBI has so far accorded formal sanction, for an aggregate contribution of Rs 1619.25 crore after undertaking detailed appraisal and due diligence, the Ministry added.

Source: Hindustan Times