SIDBI saw over 3.5x return on FFS scheme on early exits, says Chairman S Ramann

ivasubramanian Ramann, Chairman & Managing Director, Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI)

Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI), which operates the government’s Fund of Funds scheme (FFS) for startups, has recorded over 3.5x returns on some of its early exits, Sivasubramanian Ramann, Chairman of SIDBI, said.

“The initial returns from some of the early exits gave us little more than 3.5 times the initial capital that was paid for most of the investments," Ramann said during a session at the Startup Mahakumbh in Delhi. "Not an indicative number, but I am sure all startups are doing an excellent job and we will end up getting twice the principal investment.”

Started in 2016, with a corpus of Rs 10,000 crore, SIDBI has become one of the popular limited partners (LPs) of the Indian startup ecosystem, investing via Alternate Investment Funds (AIFs).

Ramann said that Rs 12,000 crore was committed as a few state governments contributed to the fund later. Further, a little less than Rs 4,500 crore was drawn down. "This Rs 4,500 crore of drawdown was translated into Rs 17,000 crore funds, which will further be cycled back into startups," he added.

Moving forward, SIDBI plans to float a Rs 10,000-crore rights issue in the next fiscal to expand its equity capital as it expects to grow assets to Rs 5 lakh crore by the end of March 2024 from about Rs 4 lakh crore in March 2023.