Ahmedabad: Gujarat Venture Fund Limited (GVFL) has raised Rs.600 million for its SME (small and medium enterprises) Technology Venture Fund. "The fund would be used for investing in various projects of both small and medium technology companies. GVFL plans to invest this entire fund in six to eight projects in a time period of one year with an approximate investment amount per project anywhere between Rs.5 and 15 crore (Rs.50 million to 150 million)," said Vishnu Varshney, CEO of GVFL, in a statement here on Friday.

GVFL plans to raise the entire corpus of its SME Technology Venture Fund to Rs.250 crore (Rs.2.5 billion) by 2009-10 from existing Rs.60 crore (Rs.600 million)," the statement said. "Venture capitalists invested over $777 million in 57 deals in India during the first three quarters of 2007, as per the India Venture Capital Report as against $158 million in 2006."

"The booming market is providing many innovative investment opportunities. We are currently evaluating several exciting proposals, which we would soon be finalising for investment," said Varshney. The venture capital fund has by now exited 53 of the 63 companies it had invested in. Seven divestments took place in the past year.

GVFL now plans to close two more funds that have been going on from 1995 and 1997 by March 2009, at a substantial internal rate of return. GVFL was started by Gujarat Industrial and Investment Corporation at the initiative of the World Bank in July 1990. Over the past 18 years, it has managed over Rs.1.39 billion in five venture funds, including one for IT and one for biotechnology ventures.

Source : IANS