The Economic Times August 3, 2015 Page No. 1 & 13

GUNGHOA poll of 100 C-sutte occupiers across companies has revealed that as ma~60% CXO-Ievel execs in India invested a portion of their wealth in startups Startup Culture isn't Just a Fad, Signals CXO Money Snapdeal Raises AGE OF INVES1MENI'5 $500 more'in a Fresh Round

2VEARS Alibaba, Foxconn and

3YEARS_ SoftBank pick up

4 YEARS. DealDIIest IN JA/IIUMv, AU- A MIX OFVALUA- 5-10YEARS baba started talks tIon mIsmaId1IS with SnapdeaI to and demand for !!10VEARS_ ,,-pick-,---,UP-,--stake~_-----lper10nnaIlCIHed 11 MAY,FOIIaNI metrIcs dI!Iayed NORESPONSE. too evinced interest dosure.of deal

planned to open their wallets to this as- [email protected] set class in the coming months. As many as 79 CXOs said they would New Delhi: Jasper Infotech, which TEAM ET recommend investing in startups to oth- owns and operates online marketplace ers' although with an important caveat Snapdeal.com, has raised fresh capi- that these investments were risky and As many as six in 10 CXO-levelexecu- tal, estimated at about $500 million, in tives in India have invested a portion of investors needed to make them with a new round led by Chinese e-com- their wealth in startups, an ET poll of their eyes fully open. merce giant and Tai- 100 randomly selected C-Suite occu- wanese electronics manufacturer piers across compa- Investlnlln Friends' Ventures •• 13 Foxconn, tech news startup Re/Code NBFCSQUEUE nies in a range of in- claimed late on Sunday. UPTO FUND dustry sectors has DEDICATED FUND BEING SET UP SELLERS revealed, This indi- Fund-ralslnl Spree to Continue •• 13 ~•••PHGE f; cates that startup in- I Adltya Blrta Group to vesting is more than just a fad and is here to stay for the top Tap IntoDisruptive Ideas honchos of Indian industry. The poll, conducted with a promise of _~. The Aditya Birla Group is setting anonymity to the participating C-Suite up a fund for investing between executives because they were revealing --- $2 m and $10 m in disruptive personal investments, showed that 60 f 10 CXOshad invested-sums ral-lg- ideas across finaocial5ervices, healthcare ing from a few lakhs to several crores in and retail, reports Pankaj Mlshra,» 12 startups. Among the ones that hadn't, 25 = -(tl,fllt.".' •••••~••••~.,~.••_., ••..•. , •• Fund-raising CXOs Investing in spree to Continue

~FromPalel Friends' Ventures" Citing unnamed sources, the Media-owned they had invested through finan- news outlet also said Snapdeal's largest stake- ~ From Page 1 cial intermediaries. holder, Japanese , media and telecom gi- The poll, the first of its kind, cov- The reasons for investing in these ant SoftBank, has also participated in the round. ered executives in sectors as di- flrms ranged from a desire to stay- The news website did not provide any details re- verse as banking, fmance & insur- ing ahead of the curve given the lating to valuation or the stakes picked up by the ance to FMCG & retail and from growing reputation of many star- new investors. However, when contacted by ET, a manufacturing to technology & tups as disrupters of traditional Snapdeal spokesperson denied the develop- consulting, and its fmdings sectors to having an esoteric ele- ments, and called it "speculation." showed that startup investing was ment in personal wealth manage- Both Alibaba Group and Foxconn, best known as broadbased. Executives in venture ment to plain gambling. a manufacturer of Apple's iPhones, had been in capital and private equity firms, India is in the throes of an entre- protracted negotiations with New Delhi-head- whose day job is to make these in- preneurial boom with hundreds quartered Snapdeal to invest in the latter, as they vestments on behalf of their of startups mushrooming across looked to grab a stronger foothold in the country's firms, were excluded from the poll sectors, many of them, especially fast-burgeoning consumer economy. to avoid skewing its results. web-based ones, chased by a flood In February this year, ET was the first to report As many as 23 respondents were of risk capital. that Jack Ma-led Alibaba Group hadstartednego- in the broadly defined retail and Risk capital investments in India tiations to invest in the company. In May, ET also consumer sector, while nine were during the first half of this year reported that Foxconn too had entered discus- from infrastructure and 11 from fi- have surpassed the money sions to participate in Snapdeal's upcoming nance and insurance. inflow in all of 2014, setting round of funding, which could potentially value However,inasignthataformalfi- the stage for another re- the company at about $5billion. nancial architecture for such in- cord funding year. Venture However, a mix of valuation mismatches and in- vestments is still to evolve in the capital investors funneled creasingly stringent performance-led metrics be- country like it exists in developed in Rs 15,600 crore, or $2.46 ing demanded by potential investors, have led to a economies, a large number of the billion, into Indian star- delayed closure of the transaction. executives who have invested in tups this year till June 26, FLUSH WITH FUNDS startups said they had put inmon- compared with Rs 14,850 Snapdeal, along with Bengaluru-based rival Flip- ey in enterprises founded by crore, or $2.34 billion, in kart, have raised nearly $3 billion among themselves friends and acquaintances. Some 2014, closing 197 deals dur- • in 2014, whileJetIBezos-ledAmazonhascommitted of them did it through angel in- ingtheperiod,accordingto to pump in $2 billion-to its Indian operatio th vestiflg networks of.-wftieh-fuey-" -data from..-financittl orf'e~f---I. - third majorecommerce player in the country. are members while a handful said search flrrn VCCEdge. "