Ratan Tata’s Portfolio: 18 Startups That Highlight His Investment Acumen

As the Indian startup ecosystem mourns the demise of Ratan Tata, chairman emeritus of Tata Sons, many of his angel investments and early bets have come into the limelight.

From backing Ola and Ola Electric in the early days to investing in listed giants such as Paytm, Tracxn, FirstCry and others — Tata was celebrated as a visionary investor.

With over 40 startups in his portfolio — personal as well as through his family office and venture fund — Tata influenced the course of startups across different sectors, from ecommerce to mobility to consumer services and fintech startups.

Calling himself an accidental investor, he once said, “If the founder has passion and innovation, he needs to be supported. I am more intuitive than a numbers person and I also recognise that not all investments are going to be positive, some may fail and some may have problems for different reasons, but that is life.”

Besides investing in new-age ventures over the past 12 years, Tata served as an advisor and mentor for numerous other startups and even funds such as Kalaari Capital.

With his support and guidance many of these startups have not just turned successful, but also gone through the trials and tribulations to reach unicorn status and the stock exchanges. Let’s dive into some of the prominent brands of the Indian startup ecosystem, backed by Ratan Naval Tata.

A Peek Into Ratan Tata’s Portfolio

The list below is not a ranking of any kind. The startups have been listed in alphabetical order.

Ampere 

Besides Ola Electric, Tata’s big bet in the EV sector was on Ampere, In fact, it was one of the first automobile startups to secure investment from Tata when he invested about INR 3 Cr in Ampere in his personal capacity in 2015. 

Later in 2018, the industrialist took an exit and is believed to have earned more than twice his investment. Tata’s nous in his investments is evident from the fact that he scored several such big exits across many of his portfolio companies. 

Atlan 

Tata was always early on the opportunity and has looked to back platforms and companies that have the potential to create long-term impact. And that’s the case with data collaboration platform Atlan 

Founded by Prukalpa Sankar and Varun Banka, Atlan allows data teams to work in collaborative workspaces to build applications and other internal products. 

In May this year, data democratisation platform raised $105 Mn in its Series C funding round, co-led by Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC and Meritech Capital. The company is valued at close to $750 Mn in 2024 and is among the profitable startups in Tata’s portfolio. 

BlueStone

The ecommerce sector saw the most investments from Tata in a personal capacity and through his two investment vehicles. He backed omnichannel jewellery brand BlueStone in 2014, at a time when ecommerce was just taking roots in India.

From those early days, Tata saw the company reach the IPO stage in 2024. The company completed an INR 900 Cr funding round, pushing its valuation to $970 Mn. BlueStone’s operating revenue surpassed INR 1000 Cr mark in FY24 and it’s eyeing an IPO next year. 

CarDekho 

Auto marketplace CarDekho’s parent entity bagged an undisclosed amount of funding from Ratan Tata in 2015. This investment is said to be his fourth bet in the Indian startup space after Snapdeal, BlueStone and UrbanLadder.

Founded by Amit Jain and Anurag Jain in 2008, CarDekho is eyeing $500 Mn IPO next year. In 2021, the company entered the unicorn club after raising $200 Mn in an equity Series E round and $50 Mn in debt.

CashKaro

When it comes to the fintech sector, Paytm is the biggest name in Tata’s portfolio, but he also backed cashback and coupons platform CashKaro in 2016, at a time when no one was sure of where the business model would head. 

This was just three years after the startup’s inception and the beginning of the UPI revolution which has lifted all fintech boats. It is pertinent to note that Ratan Tata was also on the advisory board of Kalaari Capital, a key investor in CashKaro. 

Founded by Swati Bhargava and Rohan Bhargava, CashKaro’s consolidated operating revenue, is said to have jumped over 20% to cross the INR 300 Cr mark in FY24, thanks to its foray into aggregating and recommending credit cards and other financial products. 

Curefit

The healthtech unicorn secured an investment of $3 Mn from Ratan Tata’s RNT Capital in 2017, and a few years later, Curefit raised $75 Mn from Tata Digital. 

Founded by Mukesh Bansal and Ankit Nagori in 2016, CureFit runs physical fitness platform Cult.fit, mental health platform MindFit, primary care vertical Care.fit, among others. The company entered the unicorn club in 2021, after a $145 Mn funding round led by Zomato and South Park Commons.

FirstCry

FirstCry was one of the first vertical marketplaces to really take off in India. The company rightly identified that shopping for kids is much different than shopping for products on Amazon and Fipkart. 

In 2016, Tata acquired a 0.02% stake in FirstCry for INR 66 lakh in the company to buy 77,900 equity shares for INR 84.72 per share, as per disclosures in FirstCry’s IPO filings. 

Even though this was six years into the company’s journey, Tata came in at the right time. Incidentally, Tata sold these shares in the IPO for INR 5 Cr, netting a staggering 660% return on his investment. 

GOQii

Founded in 2014 by Abhishek Sharma, Champ Alreja, Sachin Janghel and Vishal Gondal, fitness startup GOQii was one of the pioneers in India’s healthtech ecosystem.

Tata invested in GOQii 2016, and saw the healthtech opportunity much earlier than many noted venture capital funds. Since then the company has raised multiple rounds and has created a hybrid fitness platform built around smartwatches and expert training. 

Innoviti

The digital payment solutions provider attracted Tata and Tata Sons attention thanks to its business model of empowering retailers. 

Titan Industries picked up a 5% stake in the Bengaluru-based startup in 2007. Then, in 2014, it raised INR 10 Cr funding from Tata Capital and others. 

The company was established by Amrita Malik and Rajeev Agrawal, and develops payments processing, credit distribution, and payments management software solutions. 

Moglix 

Along with ecommerce marketplaces, Tata also brought his mentorship and early stage advice to B2B marketplace Moglix in 2016, just a year after inception. The company went on to become a unicorn in 2021, at the peak of the Indian startup funding spree. 

The ecommerce platform caters to merchants and businesses looking to procure industrial tools and equipment. It pushes supply chain efficiencies in business purchasing.

Ola

In 2015, Ratan Tata invested an undisclosed amount of funding in ride railing startup Ola, picking up a minority stake in the company. Later in 2017, Tata’s VC firm RNT Capital participated in Ola’s Series I funding round, in which the company raised a total of $104.4 Mn (INR 670 Cr). 

Founded by Ankit Bhati, Bhavish Aggarwal and  Pranay Jivrajka in 2010, Ola offers a wide range of mobility solutions with vehicles across bikes, auto-rickshaws, metered taxis, and cabs. 

Ola Electric 

The story, as told by Bhavish Aggarwal on Twitter (X) after Tata’s passing, is that the Ola investor and mentor once invited Aggarwal to Chennai to demonstrate his personal electric vehicle project built on the Tata Nano platform. 

Aggarwal later claimed that this was one of the forces that compelled him to launch Ola Electric. He invested in the EV business in May 2019 as part of the company’s Series A round. 

Ola Electric is part of the cluster of startups in Tata’s portfolio that have hit the public markets, though. RNT Associates, Tata’s VC firm invested INR 14 Cr in Ola Electric soon after its inception. The firm sold its stake in the IPO and netted 10.2X returns on its initial investment.

Paytm 

Fintech major Paytm was one of the key startups in which Tata invested in the early days. It was a personal investment in 2015 where he picked up a small stake. Besides this, he took on the role of an advisor to Paytm at the same time. 

Founded by Vijay Shekhar Sharma in 2000, Paytm offers payment solutions to merchants and customers such as online payment gateway, QR payments, card payments. With its listing in 2021, Paytm grabbed the limelight as it was the first fintech major to hit the public markets. 

Snapdeal

Tata was a big believer in the ecommerce story of India. He backed some of the earliest vertical and horizontal marketplaces, and Snapdeal is counted as one of his first investments in the Indian startup ecosystem. 

In 2014, Tata invested an undisclosed amount of funding in the Gurugram-based ecommerce giant, which went on to become a unicorn and then saw a swing in fortunes. Nevertheless, the startup founded by Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal in 2010, has persevered. For instance, Snapdeal’s acquisition and scaling up of Unicommerce led to the company’s public listing in 2024. 

The company managed to narrow down its net loss by 44.7% to INR 282.2 Cr in FY23 from INR 510.3 Cr in the prior year.

Tracxn 

Another of the listed companies in Tata’s portfolio, Tracxn went to the public markets in 2022. Six years before this, Tata led a funding round for the Bengaluru-based market intelligence platform. Like many of his deals as an angel, the size of the deal and his stake were not disclosed at the time. 

Founded by Abhishek Goyal and Neha Singh in 2013, Tracxn is a market research and data platform that tracks company financials and captables of entities worldwide. The company posted an 84.6% jump in its profit after tax to INR 1.27 Cr in the June quarter (Q1) of FY25 from INR 68.93 Lakh in the year-ago quarter.

Upstox

Just days before his demise, reports indicated that Tata took a partial exit from discount broking platform Upstox with 10X returns after the startup concluded a buyback of 5% of equity. 

Tata registered a 23,000% return on the original investment made in 2016, based on the startup’s last valuation of $3.5 Bn, the startup said. Tata acquired a 1.33% stake in Upstox when he invested in the startup in 2016.

Urban Company 

It’s a testament to Tata’s vision that he identified many of the startups that have become the flag bearers of the Indian startup ecosystem. 

Take for instance, Urban Company, which was founded in 2014, by Abhiraj Bahl, Raghav Chandra and Varun Khaitan, where Tata invested after just one year of operations. At the time the company was called Urban Clap, and was also backed by Snapdeal founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal, two entrepreneurs who were also in Tata’s portfolio. 

Recounting his contribution to the startup, Urban Company said that it is “fortunate to have Mr. Ratan Naval Tata as one of our investors and backers”.

Urban Ladder

Way back in 2014, well before ecommerce had taken roots in India, Tata invested in furniture marketplace Urban Ladder. In 2020, Reliance Retail bought 96% stake in Urban Ladder in an INR 182.12 Cr deal.

Incidentally, Urban Ladder founder Rajiv Srivasta once said, “You can see that he [Ratan Tata] is very active in the ecommerce industry in India with multiple other investments and he follows our company even closer because he has a big passion for furniture being an architect himself.”

This quote is an indication of Tata’s penchant for backing startups in areas that he is personally invested in. Other examples that stand out are Ola Electric.

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