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

A podcast:

Shiva Singh Sangwan @shivassangwan

Arjun and his wife Trisha moved back to India and connected the dots to build Dr. Vaidya’s. Saw the repackaging of yoga trend in the US, the e-commerce wave in India, and figured power couple had great complementary skill sets. The rest is history.

anchor.fm17: Arjun Vaidya (Dr. Vaidya’s & Verlinvest) by 1947 RiseArjun Vaidya is a D2C founder & investor. He built Dr. Vaidya’s to India’s largest Ayurveda brand online. Dr. Vaidya’s was recently acquired by RP Sanjiv Goenka Group – making it one of India’s first D2C exits. He now leads venture investing for Verlinvest in India SHOW NOTES Arjun’s journey from…

Worth your attention:

1. Games24x7 raises $75 million funding at $2.5 billion valuation Link

2. Citymall raises $75 mn led by Norwest Venture; valuation tops $300 mn Link

3. Classplus raises $70 million led by Alpha Wave Global, Tiger Global Link

4. FanCraze raises $100 million in a funding round led by Insight Partners Link

5. IndMoney closes $86 million funding, valued at $650 million Link

6. Vivriti Capital bags $55 million in funding from existing investors Link

7. Pine Labs raises $50 million from PE major Vitruvian Partners at a valuation of $5 billion Link

8. Tiger Global leads $36 Mn round in supply chain startup Wiz Freight Link

9. India’s aim is to become world’s largest startup destination: Piyush Goyal Link

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