Sequoia Capital‘s general partner, Douglas Leone is pleased with India. “We could not be more thrilled. We don’t have 25-30 category leaders in the United States; we don’t have [as many] in China right now, but we have it in India,” said Leone, whose fund has backed companies such as local search provider Justdial, restaurant listings service Zomato and data analytics firm Mu Sigma.
Interviewed in the Economic Times of India, the billionaire venture capitalist whose firm has backed Google, Apple, Tesla and Cisco said, “We are seeing startup companies [in India] growing just as fast as we’ve seen in the United States.” The fund expects to catch startups younger, pour more money into those already in the portfolio and sniff out the best deals in India’s booming consumer Internet space. Sequoia has backed more than 100 companies in India and since 2011 it has invested $800 million in the country.
Leone said that Sequoia took a decision to stay away from online retail in India, a business that requires large amounts of capital and where profits are hard to come by. “We think it is a big top line space, but difficult to figure out when it is going to be a big bottom line space,” he said about India’s online retail sector. Domestic market leader Flipkart has raised $1.2 billion this year alone and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos has pledged to invest $2 billion in India.
India is the “next land of opportunity for entrepreneurship” and Sequoia is looking to make the most of it.
