Mohandas Pai mulls $1 bn investment in Indian start-ups by 2020; disappointed with lack of local support to new ventures

Manipal Global Education chairman T V Mohandas Pai is reportedly planning investment to the tunes of about $1 billion (approximately Rs 7,200 crore) in country’s start-ups in the next two years, a media report said. The mode of investment may be both direct and indirect. According to Business Standard, Mohandas Pai has invested about $100 million (approximately Rs 710 crore) in start-ups and venture capital (VC) funds through Aarin Capital that the former member of board of directors at Infosys Technologies co-founded with Manipal Group managing director Ranjan Pai. [caption id=“attachment_4277499” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Mohandas Pai. Reuters.[/caption] As part of expanding the investment, Aarin is scouting for outside investors with an aim to set up another fund of $125-175 million, the report said. It has invested in VC firms like Idea Fund, Singular Ventures and Exfinity Ventures. Aarin invested in a variety of ventures including personalised learning app Byju’s, Vyom, a clinical stage bio-pharmaceutical firm, three-star budget hotel network FabHotels and Pocket Aces, a digital entertainment firm. Mohandas Pai is disappointed with the lack of fund support that the start-ups in India received from the local investors, the newspaper said. It may be noted that the IT veteran had said in March this year that though all the start-ups have a bright future, about 60 percent of them would not survive due to lack of market and other factors. According to him, India has about 30,000 start-ups employing about 3.5-4 lakh people and every year about 5,000-6,000 new such ventures are sprouting. Centre’s Startup India policy coupled with policies of various states, IT initiatives, success of Flipkart and others, have enthused more people, the Manipal Global Education chairman had said. “All startups have bright future,” Pai said, adding that those who work well succeed. “But the mortality rate is very high. About 60 per cent of them will fail. That is the nature of the industry,” Pai said. In December 2017, Mohandas Pai had said that India would have one lakh start-ups by 2025 providing employment to about 32 lakh people and creating $500 billion in value. With inputs from PTI