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Karnataka's VC fund notches up Rs 100 million

Kitven is a 10-year close-ended fund and will focus on the information technology industry. It is to have a total corpus of Rs 150 million.

T O D A Y

• Web Cruiser is here • Kitven collects Rs 100m • Pentafour to move • LanBit's equity

The government has appointed M Rudradev as Kitven's chief executive.

The remaining Rs 50 million of the initial corpus will be raised later this year.

State financial organisations and the Small Industries Development Bank of India are funding Kitven.

At present, Kitven has 20 applications before it. They range from established software companies to start-ups, claimed N Viswanathan, principal secretary to the government of Karnataka.

"We expect the fund to become fully invested within the year,'' he said. The fund is expected to return 25-30 per cent in the first year after investments commence.

The Small Industries Development Bank has instituted a three-tier funding pattern for venture capital firms. The total corpus of this is Rs 1 billion.

Later, SIDBI plans to form a $50 million corpus to fund overseas investments by Indian IT companies.

- Compiled from the Indian media

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