SRI Fund has put ₹21,330 crore into 824 MSMEs as ministry courts women founders

The Self-Reliant India (SRI) Fund has so far put ₹21,330 crore into 824 micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), and the government now wants more women-led firms to tap it, the Ministry of MSME said at a workshop in New Delhi.

The ministry held the awareness workshop on 4 November at Kartavya Bhawan 3 as part of its Yashashvini Campaign for women entrepreneurs. More than 60 women entrepreneurs attended, along with industry associations, NSIC Venture Capital Fund Limited, SBI Ventures Limited, the fund's Daughter Funds, NITI Aayog's Women Entrepreneurship Platform and the Atal Incubation Centre ALEAP Women Entrepreneurs Hub. MSME Secretary Bharat Khera chaired it.

What the fund has done

The SRI Fund was designed to give MSMEs equity support beyond traditional debt. The government committed ₹10,000 crore, and private investors were expected to add four times that amount, Development Commissioner Dr Rajneesh told the workshop.

Khera said commitments of ₹8,305 crore have been made against the corpus and that nearly ₹48,000 crore has been drawn from private venture capital and private equity funds. He gave these figures:

• 72 Daughter Funds have been empanelled.
• 824 MSMEs have received ₹21,330 crore, about 74 per cent of them micro enterprises.
• 77 supported firms have moved to a larger category, six have listed on stock exchanges and 32 exits have been completed with profits.

The Mother Fund invests only through Daughter Funds, which make decisions on commercial lines. Khera said the government stays at arm's length from those decisions.

Why women-led firms

Khera said registrations on the Udyam and Udyam Assist portals crossed 10 crore on 30 October 2026, and 37.6 per cent of them are women-owned. "Now, let us aspire to take this share to 50 per cent," he said. With formalisation largely done, he added, the ministry's job is to help MSMEs scale up, and "growth capital is critical".

Industry associations told the workshop that early-stage women-led firms need smaller ticket sizes, investment-readiness programmes in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities, and flexibility for founders who lack collateral or long balance-sheet histories.

Credit and equity together

Khera said MSME credit outstanding has grown from about ₹10 lakh crore in 2014 to over ₹40 lakh crore, with non-performing assets in the sector down to about 3.5 per cent. He said Union Budget 2026-27 gave the SRI Fund another ₹2,000 crore for micro enterprises, and pointed to a newly launched ₹10,000-crore SME Growth Fund that will invest directly in small and medium firms.

Daughter Funds look for a strong market, a capable team, a scalable model, audited financials and governance readiness, including a private limited company structure. Details of all 72 Daughter Funds are on the website of NSIC Venture Capital Fund Limited.

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Source: official release by the Ministry of Micro,Small & Medium Enterprises, issued through the Press Information Bureau, Government of India (05 NOV 2026 1:37PM by PIB Delhi). Read the full official text: Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) organised an awareness workshop on SRI Fund for supporting Women-Led MSMEs.