Bessemer plans to invest $40-50 million in India this year
ET Bureau|
Updated: Feb 22, 2018, 08.47 AM IST
BENGALURU: Bessemer Venture Partners plans to invest $40-50 million in India this year, including in companies in its existing portfolio. The Silicon Valley-headquartered firm, best known for investing in companies such as professional social network LinkedIn and restaurant directory player Yelp, is eyeing opportunities in emerging healthcare technology and financial technology, besides consumer internet segment.
The venture capital firm has been active in India for over a decade and has invested about $700 million across 47 portfolio companies.
“We are more selective than spray and pray,” said managing director Vishal Gupta, who heads the India office of the firm. “Investing pace in India is business as usual. In the last 18 months we have backed five new companies.”
“Our investment strategy is making a few but concentrated bets,” he said.
The firm can start by investing about $5 million and then raise the commitment to $40-50 million across rounds. For instance, it has led multiple rounds of funding for existing portfolio companies such as home design solutions player Livspace. Meanwhile, the venture firm has also beefed up its team, bringing in Anant Vidur Puri as a vice-president and Hrishikesh Arjun Nair as a senior analyst.
Some of the new companies that the firm has backed include food delivery startup Swiggy; payments company Innoviti; Perfios, which offers an analytics tech platform to more than 100 banks; and healthcare application DocsApp.
Initially it backed early-stage tech companies to even listed companies, but over the past five-six years it has sharpened its focus on technology companies as the startup market boomed.
The venture capital firm has been active in India for over a decade and has invested about $700 million across 47 portfolio companies.
“We are more selective than spray and pray,” said managing director Vishal Gupta, who heads the India office of the firm. “Investing pace in India is business as usual. In the last 18 months we have backed five new companies.”
“Our investment strategy is making a few but concentrated bets,” he said.
The firm can start by investing about $5 million and then raise the commitment to $40-50 million across rounds. For instance, it has led multiple rounds of funding for existing portfolio companies such as home design solutions player Livspace. Meanwhile, the venture firm has also beefed up its team, bringing in Anant Vidur Puri as a vice-president and Hrishikesh Arjun Nair as a senior analyst.
Some of the new companies that the firm has backed include food delivery startup Swiggy; payments company Innoviti; Perfios, which offers an analytics tech platform to more than 100 banks; and healthcare application DocsApp.
Initially it backed early-stage tech companies to even listed companies, but over the past five-six years it has sharpened its focus on technology companies as the startup market boomed.
