1947 Rise ☀️: 227
1. Sequoia considers auditing South Asia investments as lapses rise
Sequoia Capital’s regional arm in South and Southeast Asia is weighing special audits of several investments in the region following allegations of financial irregularities at firms such as Zilingo Pte and GoMechanic.
The venture capital firm will work with Ernst & Young on some of these audits and will increase budget allocations to help investee companies put governance guardrails in place, according to people familiar with the decision who asked not to be named discussing private information.
Sequoia Capital India will also be more selective when taking board seats at companies and, in some cases, might replace junior members from their team on boards with more senior partners, the people said.
Sequoia considers auditing South Asia investments as lapses rise
2. PhonePe raises $350 mn at $12 billion valuation
Walmart-owned Indian digital payments app PhonePe has raised $350 million from US private equity firm General Atlantic at a pre-money valuation of $12 billion, becoming the latest decacorn as well as the most valuable homegrown fintech startup. A decacorn is a privately held company valued at $10 billion or more.
The investment is the first tranche of PhonePe’s latest fundraising that could see marquee global and Indian investors pour in up to $1 billion in PhonePe. Existing investors, including Tiger Global Management, Qatar Investment Authority and Microsoft, are also likely to invest in PhonePe.
A podcast 🎙
3 step path to Angel Investing 👇🏼
- Know your capital allocation
- Getting deal flow access
- Building brand
Ankur Warikoo.
In this episode we covered:
- What drove Ankur into angel investing and what was his first angel investment
- How does Ankur source deals and evaluate founders
- Traits of a mediocre founder according to Ankur
- Cheque sizes that Ankur writes and sectors that he invests in
- Some of Ankur’s misses and his learnings from them
- Advise on how to start angel investing
- If money and attention are not needed anymore what would he work on
- How much of his success would Ankur attribute to luck
- Ankur’s relationship with money
- What do Ankur’s friends know him for
- How to become a good listener
Full episode on Youtube ☀️ https://bit.ly/3k9Kqo6
Worth your attention:
Enterprise AI startup Mad Street Den raises $30 million — Times of India Link
Indian-Americans, 1% of US population, pay 6% of taxes: Congressman link
B Capital closes third growth fund at $2.1 billion to ramp up India bets Link
EV battery startup Log9 raises $40 million funding Link
Specialty coffee startup Blue Tokai raises $30 million in funding led by A91 Partners Link
Z3Partners marks final close of first fund at Rs 550 crore Link
GoMechanic founder admits to financial misreporting; firm lays off 70% of its staff link