SRI Fund Has Backed 824 MSMEs with Rs 21,330 Crore

The Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises held an awareness workshop on the Self-Reliant India (SRI) Fund for women-led MSMEs on 4 November 2026 at Kartavya Bhawan 3 in New Delhi, as part of the Yashashvini Campaign for women entrepreneurship. Secretary (MSME) Shri Bharat Khera chaired it and over 60 women entrepreneurs attended.

Where the fund stands

The SRI Fund was created to give small firms equity rather than only loans. The central government committed Rs 10,000 crore to it, hoping private investors would put in four times as much. Commitments of Rs 8,305 crore have been made against that corpus so far, and nearly Rs 48,000 crore has been drawn in from private venture capital and private equity funds. 72 Daughter Funds have been empanelled, and investments of Rs 21,330 crore have gone into 824 MSMEs, about 74 per cent of them micro enterprises.

The numbers from the workshop

How the structure works

A Mother Fund invests only through the Daughter Funds, and those funds in turn invest in the enterprises. They decide on commercial grounds, looking at viability, the growth record of the last three years and a business plan with positive cash flows, and the government keeps an arm's length from those decisions. Of the firms backed, 77 have climbed into a larger category, six have listed on stock exchanges and 32 exits have been completed at a profit. NSIC Venture Capital Fund Limited is the special purpose vehicle, and SBI Ventures Limited is the investment manager.

What the Secretary said

Shri Khera said registrations on the Udyam and Udyam Assist portals crossed 10 crore on 30 October 2026, closing the formalisation gap, and that 37.6 per cent of them are women-owned, a share he wanted taken to half. MSME credit outstanding has risen from about Rs 10 lakh crore in 2014 to over Rs 40 lakh crore, with bad loans in the sector down to roughly 3.5 per cent. The Union Budget 2026-27 gave the SRI Fund another Rs 2,000 crore for micro units, and a new Rs 10,000 crore SME Growth Fund will invest directly in small and medium firms.