FIVE parties have responded to Punjab Infotech Venture Fund’s (PIVF’s) invitation for a suitable strategic partner/investor under the public private partnership initiative to improve its operational efficiency and bridge the gap in the existing fund corpus. Punjab Venture Capital Limited (PVCL), acting as the investment manager for the venture capital fund, had sought expressions of interest-cum-request for qualification(RQF) for associating with the venture capital fund and its two entities as there no funds are forthcoming from the core contributors. The five parties that have expressed interest include Srei Ventures, Subhkam Ventures, Dr IT Planets Limited and Rahul Sales. The last date for submission of applications was September 17,2007. Ernst & Young is expected to consider the proposals in detail. PIVF, with a corpus of Rs 20 crore, was set up by the Punjab government through its corporate bodies like Punjab Information & Communication Technology Corporation Limited (Punjab Infotech), Punjab State Industrial Development Corporation Limited and Punjab Financial Corporation in association with the Small Industries Development Bank of India as a 10-year close ended fund for investing in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) primarily in the information technology and software sectors. However, PIVF is in need of a strategic investor to help it bridge the gap of Rs 15.50 crore in the existing fund corpus. The fund, it is understood, will be open to all kinds of transactions and investments in start-up/seed/R & D ventures, growth capital, turnrounds and buyouts. With the induction of a strategic partner, PIVF will be in a position to enhance the level of operational efficiency through efficient systems and processes in managing the fund, bridging the gap in the existing fund corpus and assist the fund to increase its corpus to Rs 50 crore and further to Rs 100 crore in the next two years. PVCL will also look at widening the sectoral coverage from existing IT and software sectors to target SMEs in other knowledge based sectors