Rajasthan Venture Capital Fund (RVCF) has raised Rs 75 crore ($15.3 million) in its second fund largely targeting firms based in Rajasthan and the National Capital Region, although it can invest in the rest of the country too. The new fund would seek deals in the range of Rs 1-25 crore ($250K to $5 million) looking to provide both start-up and growth capital to companies with focus on IT/ITES, auto, biotech and other technology oriented industries.
According to a report in The Hindu, RVCF has the option of raising another Rs 25 crore to take the total corpus of this fund to Rs 100 crore and the firm is talking to few foreign institutional investors and domestic institutional and private sector investors to achieve the final closing.
The fund is managed by Rajasthan Asset Management Company whose principal shareholders include Rajasthan State Industrial Development & Investment Corporation Limited (RIICO), SIDBI and Bank of Rajasthan among others.
Besides the principal shareholders, other contributors to this second fund include United India Insurance, General Insurance Corporation, State Bank Bikaner and Jaipur (SBBJ) and the government's Technology Development Board.
Based in Jaipur, it is Rajasthan's first venture capital fund, mandated to operate on pan India basis, focusing on small and medium sized companies in the field of IT/ITeS, Bio-technology, Retail, Tourism, Hospitality and Entertainment sectors.
Established in 2002, RVCF has an active investment portfolio of eight companies. The present corpus of around Rs 90 crore invested in IT/ITeS, multimedia, retail and bio-pharma. Its portfolio companies include few Rajasthan-based firms such as Natural Technologies, Cyber Futuristics, Hiteshi Herbotech and HarbingerTechAxes while the NCR based companies include Home Store (India) Ltd., Liqvid e-Learning Services and Escotoonz Entertainment.
