Two Indian technology veterans have set up a new fund that they hope will help the county churn out world-class, billion dollar startups.
Nandan Nilekani, a co-founder and the former CEO of $33 billion IT services giant Infosys, and Sanjeev Aggarwal, VC with Helion Ventures who founded now IBM-owned BPO firm Daksh, have come together to launch the Fundamentum Partnership. Initially a $100 million fund — half of which is committed already — the duo told TechCrunch that they aim to help cover the funding gap for India’s most promising tech firms.
“We believe that we need companies that are marathon runners built to scale and speed [by] entrepreneurs who want to leave a legacy,” Nilekani, whose personal fortune is estimated at over $1 billion, explained in an interview.
India counts at least eight billion-dollar-valued tech companies among its rank, according to TechCrunch data. Those include e-commerce firms Flipkart, Paytm, Snapdeal and Shopclues, Uber rival Ola and chat app firm Hike, but the Fundamentum Partnership founders believes there are many more candidates to join them.
“[The fund is] not really so much for startups but for ‘scale-ups’ because we think the challenge is how companies become large, and do things with speed, scale and flexibility,” he added.
