Andreessen Horowitz, a venture capital firm based in the Silicon Valley is currently looking for aggressive investment opportunities in India, which is the second-largest internet market in the world after its introductory investment in the country last year. The company has set apart almost $500 million to support the Indian start-ups.
The capital firm is currently looking to hire for various investment roles in India after it led a funding round last year in CoinSwitch Kuber, which is a Bangalore-based cryptocurrency exchange. In recent months, several Indian start-ups have been contacted regarding the investment by some of the firm partners, including Sumeet Singh and Seema Amble. The company announced the raise of $9 billion in the month of January for the growth, bio funds and its venture. Currently, the company is exploring the investments in an Indian Start-up which can provide a platform for opinion sharing at a valuation of $250 million.
The company has set apart almost $500 million to support the Indian start-ups.
The company has also engaged with an early-stage fintech, headquartered in Bengaluru, which is the hub of the tech industry. Informally known as a16z, if the firm goes ahead according to the plan, it would be known as the latest high-profile investor to become actively involved in India for the investments and home to almost 100 unicorns, where leading giants of the tech industry like Amazon, Facebook and Google altogether have deployed almost $20 billion in the past decade. The firm has been open about the difficulty of making an entry into new regions of interest and how it has been exploring markets like India for investment for years.
Marc Andreessen, the co-founder and general partner at a16z, six years ago shared in a talk at the Stanford Graduate School of business that supporting start-ups is very alluring and challenging at the same time, to expand the venture in more countries. According to him, venture capital is a process of understanding the company, the work of the company and the people you are working with.
Marc Andreessen is the co-founder and general partner.
If the firm continues to be a primary business like the current scenario, then graphic remoteness will be a major concern for the company and if the founder is not present at a geographic location, can he really rely on the person present to make the right decision or not. In order to avoid this, some firms have been trying to create local teams for remote locations. But in that case, the concern is if the local team is too good, there is a chance that they can easily leave the company and run their own business, and if it is bad, the company will have to face issues again, Marc added.
It is a great time for the firm to grab the deals in India as the valuations are getting better and broader in the private as well as public markets. The scores for several firms have increased the speed of their investment in India in the past two years. The list of firms includes General Catalyst, Bessemer Venture, Insight Partners, Venture Partners, B Capitals, James Murdoch’s Bodhi Tree, Rabbit Capital, D1 and Dragoneer.