Hindered by a stagnant economy, Indian VCs turn to international markets to get their startups global exposure
In 2004, venture capitalist Ashish Gupta quit his job at Woodside Fund in California, and moved to Bangalore. With global private equity players investing aggressively in India, he thought the time was right for venture capitalists (VC) to enter the fray, and co-founded Helion Venture Partners in 2006. After eight years and investments in more than 55 startups, Gupta— Helion’s founder and senior managing director— returned to California in June. Gupta has a new goal: To facilitate the access of his portfolio companies to one of the world’s most developed markets, one that has an ecosystem where startups can thrive.
“As companies become more tech savvy, having access to the US will be a very important requirement. We need to know the landscape of the US for better investment frameworks in India,” says Kanwaljit Singh, co-founder and senior managing director, Helion.
Today, it’s one of the biggest VCs in etail, and its portfolio also includes companies such as Zansaar (home appliances and décor), Zopnow (grocery) and Teabox (fine tea), among others. “We got our first exposure to ecommerce when the market was really small, around the time we invested into Flipkart. Since then, we have researched emarkets in the US, China and Russia, and conduct periodic studies of India’s overall ecommerce progress,” says Subrata Mitra, partner at Accel Partners, India. “We are looking to invest in other related areas such as payments, logistics, and customer analytics.”
(This story appears in the 08 August, 2014 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)