The Hindu Business Line : AP Investment Fund to support small firms

Hyderabad May 29 Andhra Pradesh Investment Fund, a new angel investment fund with an initial corpus of $2 million, was launched here today with plans to ramp it to $7 million in the first phase and later with another round of $10 million.

Promoted by Mr Venkatesh Tadinada and some entrepreneurs based in Silicon Valley, the fund mandate is to provide seed capital through equity participation for companies located in Andhra Pradesh, and hence the name AP Investment Fund.

Addressing newspersons, Mr Venkatesh Tadinada said that that they were in parleys with four companies for funding and these cover IT, biotech and pharma sectors.

The fund has been raised through contributions from non-resident Indian community to support start-ups. However, these could also be for later stage investments, he said.

The State IT Minister, Mr R. Damodar Reddy, said that the State was committed to supporting small and medium enterprises and the policy framework for 2005-2010 provides for incentives to these small companies.

Support services

Since small companies are finding it difficult to acquire land and develop their facilities around Hyderabad, it is proposed to offer them land in the neighbouring districts of Mahbubnagar, Nalgonda and Medak.

Referring to his recent visit to the US, Mr Reddy said that executives of some of the IT companies expressed their concerns about the Government helping big companies at the cost of small and medium-sized ones.

Taking their feedback, the Government now plans to offer them support services.

5 lakh jobs

The Government is working towards creating 5 lakh jobs over five years and last year the sector added about 35,000 jobs directly.

For every job created by IT sector, about 3-4 jobs are created in other related sectors.

The Government effort is now directed to broaden the skill base by providing finishing touches to engineering graduates and make them employable, he said.

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