Statewide Enterprise Intermediary. An SEI, sometimes referred to as a statewide microenterprise intermediary (SMI), is a strategy and/or structure designed to attract new, otherwise unavailable state-level funding to redeploy to microenterprise practitioners. In effect, an SMI becomes a statewide funder for practitioner organizations. Typically, an SMI develops in stages which can include planning, legal arrangement, capacity building, and full-blown intermediary-funder. Structurally, there is no single model for formalizing an intermediary, and its legal structure may evolve. One of the more important new SMI capacities is the assumption of "statewide intermediary functions."