Bank of Baroda (BoB) has committed Rs.10 crore and Punjab National Bank (PNB) has committed Rs. 5 crore in APIDC Venture Capital's (APIDC VCL), 'The Biotechnology Venture Fund'. APIDC-VCL is a public-private partnership between the Ventureast Group and the Andhra Pradesh Industrial Development Corporation (APIDC). The biotechnology fund with a targeted size of Rs. 150 crore is India's first national fund focused on biotechnology companies.

With these commitments from BoB and PNB, the biotechnology fund has reached a corpus of Rs 56 crore, claimed a press release. The other investors include UTI Bank, the government of Andhra Pradesh (APIDC), Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), Andhra Bank, and General Insurance Corporation (GIC). The fund is in discussions with a number of financial institutions, banks, and insurance companies for investment to reach the targeted Rs. 150 crore.

"The opportunity for venture capital investment into early-stage companies and into 'biotechnology' companies is huge in India. But there is little venture capital targeting such companies as VC's have shied away from early stage businesses, which happens to be the nature of most biotechnology businesses. The Biotechnology Venture Fund will increase the dimensions of such fund availability. We are one of the few that continue to do early stage VC and this is our third early stage fund now", stated Sarath Naru, managing director, APIDC-VCL.

Mr. Naru also added, "With the commitment of BoB and PNB, we now have a significant number of Institutional investors from both the banking sector, as well as the insurance sector.

Bank of Baroda CMD, Shri PS Shenoy stated, 'We are very pleased with the investment opportunity offered by the Biotechnology Venture Fund, and the management team'. Bank of Baroda is a leading bank in providing finance to large and medium industries and has a special interest in retail banking, SMEs and mid-corporates.

The Biotechnology Venture Fund had recently announced its decision to invest a total of US$ 1.62 million (approximately Rs. 8.1 crore) in three companies - Bioserve Biotechnologies, Genomik Design Pharmaceutical Pvt. Ltd. and Silico Insights.

The fund will operate primarily as a start-up and early-stage investor in businesses focusing on life sciences-related areas such as health care, drug discovery, agriculture, dairy, environmental and industrial applications.