October 13 (SeeNews) - The Fund of Funds (FoF) in Bulgaria said on Tuesday that it is providing an additional funding of 42 million levs ($25.3 million/21.5 million euro) intended for liquidity support to local small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) affected by the coronavirus crisis.
The anti-crisis financing is already available on the market, the FoF said in a statement.
SMEs can access the additional financing via three equity investment funds - Innovation Capital Fund, Vitosha Venture Partners Fund and Morningside Hill, under favourable conditions, without the need to raise private capital outside the fund manager's participation, according to the statement.
Acceleration and seed financing funds Innovation Capital Fund and Vitosha Venture Partners Fund I received an additional 10.4 million levs and 13.6 million levs, respectively, bringing their available funds to 41 million levs and 50.7 million levs. The two funds invest up to 100,000 levs in companies at the acceleration stage and up to 2 million levs in firms at an early stage of development, the FoF said.
Risk venture capital fund Morningside Hill added 18 million levs to its investment resources and now has a total of 75.3 million levs. The fund invests up to 7 million levs in start-ups at an early stage of development and in more advanced high-risk profile companies.
An agreement is to be signed with the fourth investment intermediary, New Vision 3, with an additional 14.3 million levs planned for its fund. Thus their total resources available for investment will reach 57.6 million levs, or up to 2 million levs per company at an early stage of development, the FoF said.
Earlier this year, FoF launched a 158 million levs loan guarantee instrument in support of local SMEs, the financing for which is being provided through reallocation of funds from EU's operational programme Innovations and Competitiveness 2014-2020. In July, the fund said that it will provide an additional support of 56.3 million levs as part of the instrument.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)