2 days Ago By Meha Agarwal
Led by Murakami, the India entity was rebranded as Incubate Fund Asia in September 2023 and recently closed its Fund III at $30 Mn Although Fund III is sector-agnostic, it focusses on four key areas: Consumer brands, greentech, cross-border B2B e-commerce and fintech Murakami believes that third fund serves as a critical test as VCs must demonstrate strong performance, especially regarding actual cash returns to LPs who invested in Fund I India’s investment landscape was transformed for good when the SEBI (Foreign Venture Capital Investor) Regulations 2000 opened the floodgates for global VC giants. The optimism was palpable from Day I, and a host of US-based funds, such as Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital, Y Combinator, IDG Ventures and Norwest Venture Partners, made forays. They empowered India’s burgeoning startup ecosystem and catalysed innovation and growth across sectors.
SAIF Partners, then a JV with the iconic Japanese investor SoftBank, was an early entrant in 2001, and SoftBank established its India operations in 2013, demonstrating a long-term commitment to the Indian startup ecosystem. Several VC firms from Japan, especially early stage investors, also started exploring India as a promising destination around that time. By 2014, Indian ecommerce giant Flipkart raised $1 Bn in a single funding round, while the total funding for Indian startups surpassed $5 Bn.
In brief, the global funding scenario was looking up even in those early days. One of the standout entiti.
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