Giving a major boost to the agricultural sector and rural-focused startups the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) has announced Rs 700-crore venture capital fund for equity investments.
A subsidiary of NABARD, the Nabventures, has launched the fund and has a proposed corpus of Rs 500 crore with an option to retain over-subscription of Rs 200 crore, called as the greenshoe option, an official statement said.
This is the first time that the rural development bank has launched a fund on its own.
The statement stated that, “NABARD has given an anchor commitment for the fund, which will be investing across the startups engaged in agriculture, food and rural development space. The fund had its first close but details of the investments are done by NABARAD and other limited partners, if any, was not available immediately.”
Nabventures is now scouting for equity investments in asset-light, innovative, technology-led start-ups in its focus areas. Till now, NABARAD has contributed Rs 273 crore to 16 alternate investment funds, the statement said
