The Odisha government is floating a venture capital fund with a corpus of Rs 100 crore. The fund is aimed at providing seed funding to start-ups in the MSME sector. The state government’s contribution to the fund will be Rs 50 crore that will be disbursed in two tranches – Rs 25 crore in 2014-15 and an equal amount in Rs 2,015-16. The residual amount of Rs 50 crore is expected to be raised from SIDBI and other state run finance companies. Gujarat Venture Finance, a Gujarat government undertaking with 24 years of experience in venture finance, has been roped in as the partner and consultant for creation of the fund. The onus will be this company to take care of the regulatory, legal aspects and other formalities. An asset management company will be formed with an authorized capital of Rs 1 crore in which the Odisha government will contribute 51%. The rest will come from GVFL, employees of AMC and others.
