Prominent Startup Players Including Binny Bansal Invest In A Singapore-Based VC: Report

Some of India’s startup ecosystem’s prominent investors such as Flipkart cofounder Binny Bansal, Udaan cofounder Sujeet Kumar, Flipkart Group CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy and Facebook’s Asia Pacific head Dan Neary have reportedly invested in Singapore-based Tanglin Venture Partners.

Tanglin Venture Partners, which was launched in late 2018 by former Tiger Global executives Ravi Venkatesh and Edwina Yeo currently has a corpus of $50 Mn (INR 353 Cr). The venture fund is focussed on investing in India and Southeast Asia-based technology startups.

Tanglin Venture Partners is looking to invest across 10-12 startups with an average ticket size of $3 Mn (INR 21.2 Cr).

“We presently have more than 15 LPs (Limited Partners) including tech entrepreneurs, institutions, and industry leaders hailing from Asia and other parts of the world,” Ravi Venkatesh told Inc42.

International VCs Look To India For Opportunities

In order to tap the growing Asian market, several funds targeting the startups in the South East Asian region have been launched.

Most recently, US-based alternative asset company TPG announced the final close of its Asian focused private equity fund, TPG Capital Asia VII fund, after raising  $4.6 Bn (INR 32,738 Cr) in commitments.

US-based alternative investment manager, Proterra Investment Partners is also planning to launch an Asia-focussed fund between $700 Mn – $800 Mn in 2019 to invest in the food and agriculture markets.

Most recently, US-based Microsoft’s corporate venture fund M12 forayed into the Indian market after investing $10 Mn in healthcare data analytics startup Innovaccer.

Another interesting aspect is the growing of investment by the Indian entrepreneurs back into the ecosystem.

Several prominent entrepreneurs such as Binny Bansal, Deep Kalra of Makemytrip, Naukri.com’s Sanjeev Bikchandani, TaxiForSure cofounder Aprameya Radhakishna have invested in venture capital funds in the last year.

Last month, Binny Bansal-backed early-stage venture capital fund 021 Capital had made its first close of $32 Mn (INR 222 Cr).

Following his exit from Flipkart, Bansal along with former McKinsey consultant Saikiran Krishnamurthy, launched a Bengaluru-based tech company named as XTo10X Technologies in December 2018. The new venture will be offering technology tools, learning and consulting services to growth-stage startups which are looking to scale up.

[The development was reported by ET]