120m Series Tiger Globalsawersventurebeat:
Tiger Global Management, the world’s largest private investment firm, will postpone its startup investments for two quarters and focus on raising a new venture fund later this year.
The London-based global asset manager said it would maintain its current commitments to startups but that there would be a “significant slowdown” in investing in them. “Venture capital is tough now,” Eric Kalra, managing director of Tiger Global Private Equity told Reuters. “We want to build our next fund and we want to do that right. We want to be methodical.”
The move comes after a flurry of activity by Tiger Global in India’s e-commerce sector, where the fund has pumped close to $1 billion over the past year, most of which went into Flipkart Online Services Pvt., India’s largest e-commerce company. Tiger Global owns more than 10% of Flipkart, and has been its single largest investor and is also one of its biggest shareholders. Tiger Global so far has managed eight venture capital funds.
Of the more than $1 billion it has plowed into India’s e-commerce sector, which is experiencing growth of 100-150%, less than $100 million has been spent in other sectors. In September 2014, Tiger Global had committed a total of $300 million to e-commerce ventures, including Snapdeal and MakeMyTrip.
“Many VCs have given up on the Indian market,” Kalra said. “There is some rationalization going on. Tiger Global is one of the few companies which still believes in the Indian market and is willing to commit resources to it.”
For Tiger Global, so far, it has been Flipkart Online Services (Flipkart), Snapdeal and MakeMyTrip. The other one was Myntra, which was acquired by Flipkart for $300 million in March 2014. After the acquisition, Flipkart had said that Tiger Global would play a key role in setting up its logistics business.
“Tiger Global’s initial bets in Snapdeal and MakeMyTrip have clearly paid off,” said Vaibhav Purushothaman, managing director at venture capital investment firm Matrix Partners India. “The company’s success in Flipkart and Myntra is a testament to its expert due diligence.”
Flipkart and Snapdeal are now valued at $10 billion and $8 billion respectively, while MakeMyTrip is an estimated $1.5 billion pie. IRB Infra, Quikr and CommonFloor are some of the other companies that Tiger Global has invested in.
Tiger Global’s eight venture capital funds have made close to $2 billion in exits since inception, the latest one being online grocer BigBasket, which sold a majority stake to Grofers for $200 million in November 2014.
Another top-performing firm was Accel Partners, which last year led a $150 million funding round in classifieds website Quikr.