The incubator fund will be of long duration, longer than the conventional funds and could even extend up to ten years, he said. Though the period of hand holding is longer, ICICI Venture hoped to make good returns from the business. The rate of return on ICICI ventures' investments has so far proven to be encouraging. Till date the VC had successfully exited 130 companies making significant profits.

Some of the successful ventures funded by the VC are Kale Consultants (investment Rs 50.05 million, realisation Rs 861.8 million); SQL Star International (investment Rs 28.1 million, realisation Rs 310.2 million); geometric Software solutions (Rs 8 million, current valuation Rs 480 million), Neoforma.com ($ 2.4 million, current valuation $ 13.7 million) and Niku Corporation ($ 2 million, current valuation $ 20 million). ICICI Venture's focus is predominantly in the IT segment, accounting for 24 per cent of investments. It was started in 1988 and the years have helped evolve VC funding. Since then it had seen through turbulent times in stock market booms and crashes, cyclical depressions in industry, and the period when IT and the Internet were unknown entities. Managing through the volatility of these periods without going under had given the VC some experience in venturing into uncharted areas. ``It is true that dot coms were valued irrationally in the early days, but now new concepts of securitisation ofeyeballs are coming in,'' he said.