MSME Ministry Hosts SRI Fund Workshop for Women Entrepreneurs

By: Women Entrepreneurs Review Team | Friday, 6 November 2026

The Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME), Government of India, conducted an awareness workshop on the Self-Reliant India (SRI) Fund to support women-led MSMEs on 4 November 2026 at Kartavya Bhawan 3, New Delhi. Organized under the Yashashvini Campaign, the program aimed to strengthen awareness of financial support opportunities for women entrepreneurs. Shri Bharat Khera, Secretary (MSME), chaired the event.

The workshop witnessed the participation of more than 60 women entrepreneurs from different parts of the country. Senior officials from the Ministry of MSME, industry associations, NSIC Venture Capital Fund Limited (NVCFL), SBI Ventures Limited (SVL), daughter funds under the SRI Fund, NITI Aayog's Women Entrepreneurship Platform (WEP), and Atal Incubation Centre ALEAP Women Entrepreneurs Hub also attended the program.

During the session, Dr. Rajneesh, Additional Secretary and Development Commissioner at the Ministry of MSME, outlined the development and objectives of the SRI Fund. He highlighted its role in providing equity financing to MSMEs as an alternative to conventional debt-based funding. The initiative has a government commitment of ₹10,000 crore, with private investors expected to contribute four times the amount.

Key Highlights:

• MSME Ministry conducts an SRI Fund awareness workshop under the Yashashvini Campaign
• SRI Fund supports 824 MSMEs through 72 Daughter Funds
• Women entrepreneurs receive guidance on equity funding, investment readiness and market access

In some instances, he said, the companies being invested by the SRI Fund had increased their turnover by three or four times in two or three years and had been able to obtain further investment from private sources. He asked the associations in attendance to share the information on the Fund with their members.

In his opening speech, Shri Bharat Khera informed that the registrations on the Udyam and Udyam Assist portals have surpassed 10 crore on 30 October 2026 and has aimed to eliminate the formalization deficit. Of these, 37.6 per cent were women owned businesses and today, let's aim for the 50 per cent mark. He noted that formalization now placed a greater responsibility on the Ministry to help MSMEs scale up – for which, growth capital is critical.

Shri Khera informed that under the SRI Fund, commitments worth ₹8,305 crore were made from the corpus of ₹10,000 crore and nearly ₹48,000 crore has been mobilized from private venture capital and private equity funds. 72 Daughter Funds have been empanelled and investments worth ₹21,330 crore have already been poured into 824 MSMEs of which nearly 74 per cent are micro enterprises.

Of those enterprises supported, 77 have progressed to larger size, six have gone public on stock exchanges and exits have occurred with profits for 32 enterprises. Daughter Funds invest on a commercial basis, taking into account viability, growth prospects over the past three years, and a business plan that has positive cash flows, he added. The Government has no involvement in their day-to-day activities, and cannot vouch for the nature of their investment decisions.

The secretary also emphasized that the concept of credit and equity should go hand in hand. MSME credit outstanding has increased over the past few years, from ₹10 lakh crore in 2014 to today's level of more than ₹40 lakh crore, while the non-performing assets (NPA) ratio for the MSME sector has declined to around 3.5 per cent, he said. An extra ₹2,000 crore has been allocated to the SRI Fund in the Union Budget 2026-27 for micro enterprises, he emphasized.

He also highlighted the recently unveiled SME Growth Fund of ₹10,000 crore that will directly invest in small and medium businesses. He urged entrepreneurs to keep proper financial records and use the appropriate legal formation as well as equity also helps to increase an enterprise's debt access.

Participants in Session I, ‘The growth journey of women-led MSMEs – why growth capital matters’ shared their experience of engaging with women entrepreneurs. They mentioned that many women-led businesses are at the start-up phase and need to be supported with small ticket support, investment readiness programs in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities, accounting and business valuation assistance and flexibility for the women entrepreneurs who may not have collateral, or long balance sheet history.

They also highlighted the importance of tying capital with market access such as Government e-Marketplace (GeM), ONDC, exports and called for regular and frequent such workshops.

In Session II, on ‘Overview of the SRI Fund and the role of Daughter Funds’, Additional Development Commissioner of Ministry of MSME, Praveen Kumar explained the structure of the Fund in which investments are made via Daughter Funds by the Mother Fund and investments are made by the Daughter Funds in MSMEs. Subhransu Sekhar Acharya, Chairman-cum-Managing Director of NSIC, spoke on the gaps in the MSME ecosystem and gave suggestions to the entrepreneurs on the benefits of equity funding.

Prem Prabhakar, MD and CEO of SBI Ventures Limited, the investment manager of the SRI Fund, explained that equity is a strategic investment tool as it is not ‘collateral dependent’ and investors can give ‘mentorship and hand-holding' to the enterprises that they invest in. The Daughter Funds described the investment selection process, which involves a solid market, a strong team of founders, a scalable business model, audited financial statements, preparedness to be governed as a private limited company and use of funds. They guided entrepreneurs through the typical process of securing equity investment, including screening and due diligence, as well as documentation.

The Session III theme was on support received from ecosystem partners. Atal Incubation Centre ALEAP Women Entrepreneurs Hub and Women Entrepreneurship Platform (WEP), NITI Aayog shared the various support provided to women entrepreneurs including incubation support, mentorship support, market access, information on Government schemes and compliance support. The conceptualization, planning and implementation of the workshop was technically supported by the ecosystem partner MicroSave Consulting (MSC).

The last session was an interactive Q&A in which participants discussed the approach to Daughter Funds, investment readiness of business owned by the participants, sector-specific funds, technology and infrastructure support etc.

It was shared that information about the 72 Daughter Funds – their sector focus and contacts is available on the website of the special purpose vehicle (SPV) for the SRI Fund – NSIC Venture Capital Fund Limited.  The workshop ended with a pledge from the Ministry of MSME to further support the development of women entrepreneurship in the future through the Yashashvni Campaign.