Regional head, Latika Ahuja said that increase in commitments was due to a change in regulations in the US, which paved the way for a higher funds investment.

One of the oldest venture funding agencies, this private equity fund has a total venture portfolio of $65 million (roughly Rs 283 crore) in India during the last four years it has been in operation.

Talking about the company's investment strategy, Latika Ahuja, regional head of the company, said that information technoloy would be their real focus sector. So far, the company has funded 25-odd companies in this sector. However it has also funded web properties "and we will continue to invest in net ventures," she said, adding that they were essentially looking at companies that had good revenue potentials. Among net ventures also companies which used technology in a major way in their products and services would have a definite edge over others.

While earlier on, it was entering projects at a midway stage of their operations it now has taken the initiative to fund some start-up Internet ventures too.

Ahuja made it clear that it was too soon for them to be thinking of leading Internet companies funded by it through initial public offerings. Most of the companies, she said, were not in a stage where they could tap the capital market. Internet companies are just evolving along with their business modes, she pointed out.

Incidentally, SKumars.com, from the SKumars group, is the only web-based company which has come to the market and that was last year. None of the others have as yet come close to following in its footsteps.

The company has no qualms about funding ventures in the same or similar business spaces (nor are its clients complaining) as according to Ahuja, "the market is very large and there is no real conflict in business interest," she said, adding that they looked upon Citicorp as a strategic partner in their ventures.

So far as evaluation of revenue models were concerned, she said that they had very early on in their operations decided not to look at just eyeballs but the actual revenues opportunities for the companies from their operations or services.

Among the companies funded by Citicorp is Polaris in 1997 which is a listed company - in fact it has operated on a wide canvas funding companies engaged in hardcore software products and services to silicone automation companies, telecommunications services and convergent software.

Recently it funded Travelmartindia.com, an e-commerce portal, while Dishnet - Internet Service Provider and another of their clients - also showed a reasonable good potential and revenue streams.

Exit strategies are a major point of concern for venture funding companies - and Citicorp has multiple exit strategies. One of the more popular avenues is divesting its stake, or a part of it, to the public (as happened in the case of Polaris) or trying for a total stake sell-out, either to the promoters themselves or to a strategic investor.