Kathmandu. With the objective of expanding the capital, credit and market access of women entrepreneurs, Adhyant Fund Management Limited has formally launched ‘Simrik Initiative’ worth one billion rupees. <\/p>\n
This initiative is aimed at prioritizing potential women enterprises that are deprived of investment due to the inability to mortgage their real estate in the traditional banking system. The Simrik Initiative was launched in collaboration with the Joint Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Fund, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and Hand-in-Hand Initiative (HADSI) at The Plaza in Lalitpur on Friday. Based on the concept of “For Women, By Women”, the initiative will connect women-led enterprises with financial resources, business facilitation, and market expansion opportunities. Under this, Simrik Fund, a private equity fund approved by the Securities Board of Nepal (SEBON), will invest in potential women enterprises.<\/p>\n
National Life Insurance Company Limited is the main investor in the fund. <\/p>\n
Although the potential for women entrepreneurship in Nepal is huge, access to capital is still a major challenge. The traditional practice of requiring real estate collateral, especially to get loans from banks and financial institutions, has made it difficult for women entrepreneurs who do not have real estate in their name to expand their business. <\/p>\n
The Simrik Initiative aims to address this problem by making the true potential, revenue potential, and operating conditions of the business as the basis for investment. Manoj Poudel, Chairman of Academic Fund Management, said that although Nepal’s financial system prioritizes real estate as an asset, it has not given enough importance to the potential and valuation of existing businesses. <\/p>\n
“About 50 percent of the non-agricultural small enterprises in Nepal are run by women. However, three-fourths of the families do not have a house or land in the name of the woman,” said Poudel, “Our system understands the value of the land ownership certificates immediately, but the cash flow of the business, the trust of the customers and the future prospects are not yet seen as assets.” He said that not being able to get a loan from a bank and not being able to invest in a business is a different matter. He said that some businesses need risk-sharing capital rather than collateral-based loans. <\/p>\n
According to Poudel, the Simrik Initiative will work on three pillars of understanding the enterprise, sharing the risk and investing. He said that the experience of mobilizing more than Rs 400 crore in more than 20 ventures in the last five years in collaboration with about 20 institutional investors has been made the basis of this initiative. Women will also be led in the investment committee and investment business team of Simrik Fund. The chief guest of the program, Minister for Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs, Sobita Gautam, said that promotion of women entrepreneurship is linked to building a productive economy of the country.<\/p>\n
She said that the situation of women being deprived of financial resources due to lack of collateral should end when they are trying to expand agriculture and other businesses. <\/p>\n
“In the absence of collateral, even potential business ideas are stopped. This private equity fund not only helps women but also helps them become the real owners of enterprises and property,” said Minister Gautam. <\/p>\n
She stressed the need to create production and employment opportunities in the country to strengthen the economy that is heavily dependent on remittances in the long run. Stating that the expansion of automation, robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) could increase risks in some areas of foreign employment, she said that investment should be increased in productive sectors rather than focusing only on sectors like real estate. <\/p>\n
Minister Gautam also said that the government has given priority to creating an investment-friendly environment and legal reforms. Stating that there is a plan to take 166 bills to the parliament in the current fiscal year and more than 50 bills have been approved by the cabinet, she urged women entrepreneurs to send their suggestions for policy reforms to the ministry. <\/p>\n
The Simrik Initiative will work in three areas to support women enterprises: capital, loans and guarantees, and business capacity building. The Simrik Fund will provide resilient capital, corporate governance and strategic support. <\/p>\n
Similarly, efforts will be made to provide loans in collaboration with banks and financial institutions on the basis of the cash flow and operating capacity of the business and not only on the collateral of immovable property. A memorandum of understanding (<\/p>\n
MoU) has been signed between Adhyant Fund Management and Global IME Bank to act as a banking partner of Simrik Initiative. This collaboration is expected to help expand financial access to women entrepreneurs. <\/p>\n
Another important aspect of the initiative is capacity building and market expansion of entrepreneurs. Under this, FAO Nepal and the United Sustainable Development Goals Fund (SDGF) are supporting 20 women-led enterprises in the agriculture and food value chain for financial planning, branding and preparation for investment. Acting Representative of FAO Nepal, Arun GC, pointed out the need to link women-led agricultural enterprises with modern markets and capital. Pratishtha Poudel, Coordinator of the Academic Program, gave a presentation on the SME Accelerator Program and informed about the results achieved by the local enterprises. Prema <\/p>\n
Rajya Laxmi Singh, chairperson of National Life Insurance, who is the main investor of Simrik Fund, said that institutional investment in women entrepreneurship will not only contribute to economic returns but also contribute to social transformation. <\/p>\n
Concluding the program, Ashma Mainali, Head of Legal & Compliance, Adhyanta and Investment Manager of Simrik Fund, called upon potential entrepreneurs and partners to participate in the campaign. The event was attended by policymakers, development partners, regulators, financial sector representatives and women entrepreneurs. <\/p>\n
The traditional thinking of the financial system has also been a challenge in the promotion of women entrepreneurship along with the lack of capital. How effectively the Simrik Initiative plays in changing the situation of not getting investment due to the lack of collateral will depend on its implementation. <\/p>\n
Creating conditions for women entrepreneurs, in particular, to access capital easily, to make the investment process transparent, and to make enterprises self-reliant in the long term will be the basis for measuring the real success of this initiative. <\/p>\n
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Investment looking at potential instead of collateral: One billion ‘Simrik Initiative’ launched to promote women entrepreneurship Kathmandu. With the objective of expanding the capital, credit and market access of women entrepreneurs, Adhyant Fund Management Limited has formally launched ‘Simrik Initiative’ worth one billion rupees. This initiative is aimed at prioritizing potential women enterprises that areContinue reading “Investment looking at potential instead of collateral: Simrik Initiative launched to promote women entrepreneurship”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":113793,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[147],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-113807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-samachar-en"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/simrik3_79ebd77c.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113807"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113807\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":113808,"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113807\/revisions\/113808"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/media\/113793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}