In his state budget budget speech for the year 2013-2014, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has proposed setting up a Rs 15 crore angel fund to encourage new and innovative projects. While the details on this angel fund is a bit sparse at the time of writing this article, its worth noting that the Government already manages three VC funds under Karnataka Information Technology Venture Capital Fund (KITVEN). These include KITVEN Fund, KITVEN Fund - 2 and KARVEN Fund (Karnataka Venture Capital Fund). KITVEN Fund (now liquidated) was focused on investments in IT specific companies with an average investment size of Rs 0.5 crore to Rs 1.5 crore. Its portfolio companies included 17 companies including TELiBrahma, RelQ and 24x7 Learning among others. The KITVEN website suggests that it has already liquidated its entire investment and has returned the corpus of Rs 15 crore with substantial profits. KITVEN Fund - 2 however undertook investments…
