1947 Tech 🇮🇳: 192
General Catalyst is long on India & 99th unicorn
1. General Catalyst to double down on investments in India, crypto and Web 3.0 in focus
General Catalyst, which has backed global startups like Airbnb, Instacart and Stripe, is looking to beef up investments in India, the US-based venture firm said in a virtual press meet on March 30.
The venture capital firm will continue to look at areas like fintech, healthcare, enterprise, consumer, agritech, crypto and Web3.0.
The Indian investments would be headed by former SoftBank investor Deep Nishar and former Snapdeal and Meta executive Anand Chandrasekaran.
Talking about India’s startup ecosystem, Hemant Taneja, managing director, General Catalyst, said the big takeaway for them was “that the sleeping giant of entrepreneurship is waking up”.
“The tech transformation we had in the United States from 2010 to 2020, I believe that the same is going to happen in the next decade in India,” he said.
General Catalyst to double down on investments in India, crypto and Web 3.0 in focus
2. Indian startups may see a shift in pace and quality of VC deals in 2022: Report
The Indian startup ecosystem is likely to witness a shift in the pace and quality of venture capital deals in 2022 due to global headwinds, although total investments are expected to remain in a range similar to 2021, according to a report by consultancy Bain and Co released in collaboration with Indian Venture and Alternate Capital Association (IVCA).
It said that global headwinds in early 2022 are likely to affect the funding outlook for the rest of the year but the funding momentum is expected to continue given the availability to capital and depth in the ecosystem.
“We expect that global headwinds and macro-conflicts impacting public tech listings are likely to have a trickle-down impact — investors are likely to double down on larger rounds in quality assets and focus heavily on leaner unit economics — with a slower pace of dealmaking and rationalised valuations,” Arpan Sheth, partner at Bain & Company, said in a statement shared with Moneycontrol.
After an exuberant 2021, this year started off more cautiously with several highflying new age tech stocks coming under fire on domestic bourses amid a broader public tech stock selloff in the global markets. Companies like Zomato, Nykaa, CarTrade, Policybazaar and others have witnessed a 40–60 percent dip in their stock prices while Paytm is currently trading at a quarter of its IPO issue price.
Indian startups may see a shift in pace and quality of VC deals in 2022: Report
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