India’s 10-year bond yield was near a two-month low as Finance Minister Arun Jaitley urged the central bank to cut interest rates after inflation cooled.
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With top industrialists like Anand Mahindra, Anil Ambani, Shashi Ruia, Anil Agarwal, Sajjan Jindal and Kumar Mangalam Birla in the audience, Jaitley said when legal reforms are involved, it’s not merely between the litigant or the industry at one hand and the government on the other.
He said the fund-of-funds can increase its capital to “as much as required”. India’s largest insurance company LIC will be a coinvestor in the IAF.
“India is witnessing a start-up revolution and to harness the potential of India’s innovators and entrepreneurs a vibrant financial ecosystem is essential”.
Announcing the fund, Arun Jaitley took a dig at Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi calling him “obstructionist” and said he did not “understand the pulse of aspirational India”.
The fund has committed up to Rs 60 crore in IvyCap Ventures, up to Rs 30 crore for Blume Ventures and up to Rs 20 crore for Carpediem Capital Partners, sources told ET.
The objective of SMILE scheme will be to provide soft loans in the nature of quasi-equity and term loans on relatively soft terms to MSMEs.
“The fund is expected to catalyse tens of thousands of crores of equity investment in start-ups and MSMEs”.
“Various important initiatives taken by the government was sanguine that Make In India initiative with a conducive financial ecosystem will make India a manufacturing hub very soon”, the minister added.
“The mood for the government to take positive steps has never been so positive, as the kind we have seen in the last few days”, Jaitley said at a function in Delhi to launch a Fund of Funds for startups.
Elaborating on the need to change the “mindset”, the finance minister said India must accept that it has to open most sectors of its economy. We must be number one in start-ups.
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IAF is a Fund-of-funds managed by Sidbi and is intended to play a vital role in this financial ecosystem.
