Why Tiger Global is (once again) India’s most important investor

Tiger Global once changed the funding landscape in India by “breaking the mould”—resetting expectations about amounts, valuations, and ambitions. With India’s relationship with China eroding and SoftBank’s influence waning, can it repeat its exploits?

Tiger Global’s Scott Shleifer has been bullish about India, making big, bold and quick bets

It largely stuck to mid-market and later-stage deals with just a couple of early-stage deals below $5 million

Its 2019 investments like Ninjacart, Byju’s, and Vedantu are in segments that will benefit from the lockdowns

But the bigger question is what Tiger Global’s opportunity means for the broader startup ecosystem

At the beginning of 2020, it looked like Indian startups were spoilt for choice when it came to choosing an investor. By one estimate, there was more than of dry powder in terms of reserves across funds that invest in India. Every segment of the funding spectrum—from seed-stage to Series C and beyond—seemed to have a number of service providers.

But two developments completely altered this scenario.

AUTHOR

Sumanth Raghavendra

Sumanth is a serial entrepreneur with more than eighteen years experience in running startups. He is currently the founder of Deck App Technologies, a Bangalore-based startup attempting to re-imagine productivity software for the Post-PC era. Sumanth’s columns appear regularly in leading publications. He holds MBA degrees from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore and Thunderbird, The American Graduate School of International Management, USA.

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