New adventures of old family firms

JSW Ventures is riding the crest of the family office wave, which has just reached Indian shores

Most of these business houses chose to be LPs. There is some amount of disillusionment in going down that route

JSW Ventures’ investments are set to be small and in the range $1-2 million over two rounds

Patient capital is the name of the game for family offices with a 10-year investment cycle

Greater participation by family offices into venture funding in India is much needed as most of the LPs in the current VC firms are in China and the US

This news didn’t get a lot of attention. But it is important. Late last month, JSW Ventures invested in Indus OS, a mobile operating system in regional languages. The company started as language technology company in 2014. Fast forward to 2016, in the first quarter, the startup cracked the market and gained a significant market share, becoming the second largest smartphone OS in India, according to Counterpoint Research.

AUTHOR

Patanjali Pahwa

Patanjali has spent over seven years in journalism. He last worked at Business Standard as Principal Correspondent, where he wrote on startups, e-commerce companies and venture capital. He has worked at an array of institutions, which include Forbes India, Caravan and Outlook Business. He is a Mumbaikar, born and brought up. Patanjali did his BSc in IT from Mumbai University and then got his journalism degree from IIJNM in Bangalore. He is enamoured by Ernest Hemingway and Tom Waits and may try to sneak in references to them in his stories.

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