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Investment giant Tiger Global Management has been steadily changing its approach in India. The world’s most active most active Crunchbase Tiger Leads Amid Shifting Lineup Of Most Active Investors Read more startup investor has been moving from putting money into mid-to-late-stage firms to also backing companies that are just starting out. For instance, it has been part of 10 Series A 10 Series A Money Control Tiger Global’s Series A bets in India up 3x as early-stage funding gathers momentum Read more  rounds so far in 2022—a sharp rise from three in 2021 and one in 2020. 

But there is one strategy that Tiger Global is still not letting go: of not always asking for a seat on the board from the companies it invests in. And some entrepreneurs are still not aware of this.

Earlier in 2022, the founder of a startup was surprised when Tiger Global, the company’s lead investor, did not negotiate for a board seat. “When I read the term sheet, I was pleasantly surprised,” the founder said, declining to be named because they did not want to comment on their investor publicly.

In the fundraising round mentioned above, besides Tiger Global, the fintech had earmarked some of the big names in the business—Sequoia, Matrix, Accel, and SoftBank. Finally, Tiger Global and a mid-sized venture-capital (VC) firm invested in the startup.

“Nobody ever says no to Tiger, and I can see why. They’ve been very hands-off throughout the process, letting us do our own thing within the terms of our agreement,” the founder said.

While the founder did not mention the amount raised from Tiger, they indicated that it was around $10-15 million—a far smaller bet than what Tiger is used to taking in the country.

Irrespective of the cheque size, Tiger Global—by not asking for board seats—has set itself apart from the other VCs not only in India but also in the rest of the world, becoming perhaps the most preferred VC on any startup’s captable.

The strategy of investing in early-stage startups is not new for Tiger Global. In the west, Tiger has prided itself on its quick and early bets. Moreover, its laissez-faire approach of minimum intervention has brought it success across the world in companies like e-commerce giant Alibaba, social media behemoth ByteDance, and payments startup Stripe. 

Tiger has faced its share of criticism, too, primarily due to mounting losses in the wake of tech stocks—several of which it has backed— crashing crashing TechCrunch Tiger Global, hit by $17B in hedge fund losses, has nearly depleted its latest VC fund Read more  the world over. 

AUTHOR

Shashwat Mohanty

Shashwat covers cleantech and internet. An alum of St. Xavier's College (Bombay), SCMC, and ACJ, Shashwat has previously worked at The Economic Times and Meesho. When he isn't missing deadlines, Shashwat likes attending live music gigs, discussing baseball, and watching Parks and Rec with his partner 🏳️‍🌈

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