Important to support start-ups, SMEs: BSE CEO

BSE MD and CEO Ashishkumar Chauhan on Wednesday emphasised the importance of supporting SMEs and start-ups, despite risk in raising funds for them.

"We know there is a risk in raising funds for SMEs and start-ups listed on our dedicated platforms, but some have potential of becoming giant companies such as Infosys and Reliance Industries. One must remember, Infosys and Reliance had started small," he told PTI in an interview.

Chauhan said it was important to support SMEs and start-ups because they have the potential of creating wealth.

"Even if 75 per cent of the start-ups and SMEs do not survive out of 100,000 in total, there still will be 25,000 companies.

For me it is glass half-full that is important because they will create unforeseen wealth in India," he said.

Chauhan said as many as 253 SMEs were listed on BSEs dedicated SME platform and their market capitalisation stood at ~220 billion.

"In the past six years of its inception, as many as 253 companies have been listed in our SMEs platform. At the time of listing, their market capitalisation was around ~80 billion as of July 2014. Today their market capitalisation is ~220 billion," he said.

BSE was the first bourse to launch a dedicated platform for SMEs and startups in March 2012 after Sebi allowed small companies to list without an initial public offering (IPO).

It launched an institutional trading platform for this in November 2013.