Betting on the lucrative Indian startup ecosystem, is now personal computing giant Dell’s $300 Mn venture fund arm Dell Ventures.
As part of its strategy to score more in the Asian market, Dell Ventures plans to partner and/or invest in the country’s burgeoning startups.
Amit Midha, president of Asia-Pacific and Japan at Dell said, “We’re investing to innovate in India and Asia, and to create an outreaching ecosystem in Asia, which is different. We announced Dell Ventures in China with $125 Mn investment in the country and also announced a continued expansion in India, from a 27,000 people perspective.” Midha will also be responsible to oversee Dell Ventures’ foray in the Asian market.
Dell plans to back startups beyond the early-stage phase in cloud computing, IoT (internet of things), big data, security and analytics space.
Describing over the investment in type of startups, Midha added that Dell will invest in startups that have gone beyond the five-people operation stage and who are looking at growing their businesses.
He said, “We are not a hedge fund, neither VC firm and nor an accelerator. We are interested in furthering our strategy in India and our involvement in the startups will help them grow faster and give them credibility points.
Being clear with its strategy of investment, Dell Ventures would possibly be open for making strategic partnerships, not necessarily financial investments in the startups that it will back in Asia. Citing the example of Dell’s recent partnership with Indian mobile ad startup InMobi, Midha made it clear.
Dell had shared its intentions to invest in startups in 2013, when it went private by creating a separate fund called the Strategic Innovation Fund. Earlier in June this year, Dell Services had announced to launch its Application Testing Startup Incubator Programme in India for startups operating in the space of security, mobile, and Internet-of-Things (IoT) applications. To be mentioned, Dell already has an incubation center in the US and had planned to open its first incubation center in India.
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