Alibaba-backed eWTP has partnered with the Chinese venture capital firm Ganesh Ventures to scale up investments in India. Ganesh Ventures has made its first close of a ₹200 crores ($30 million) fund backed by Alibaba founder Jack Ma’s ambitious eWTP ecosystem fund and Hong-Kong based Landmark Capital.
It seeks to build a strong network between Indian entrepreneurs and Chinese investors and entrepreneurs.
India focused fund is planning to deploy its entire corpus in domestic startups over the next three to five years. It will start by investing in companies from the domains like media technology, consumer products, financial technology and health technology. It is also planning to set up offices in Gurugram, Bengaluru, Hong Kong and Beijing, along with finalising nearly six deals by the end of this year.
Jessica Wong, managing partner of Ganesh Ventures, said, “We want to engage not just at the early stage but also at the growth stage.”
She further added, “We’ve been testing the waters in India for some time and have gained a valuable understanding of the market. The success we have achieved so far with our partners and portfolio strengthens our confidence to engage with more stakeholders and enhance our portfolio.”
As reported earlier, Ganesh Ventures recently made its first investment in India with IndiaLends. It is now well poised to enter the Indian startups’ domain in partnership with eWTP, among other investors with a target corpus of ₹1,700 crores ($250 million).
eWTP, an anchor investor in Ganesh Ventures was started in May as a $600 million cross-border fund to drive strategic investments to help companies accelerate their international expansions and to support technological innovations. It is backed by Alibaba Group and its subsidiary Ant Financial.
Along with other investors, Alibaba has also been interested in the Indian market for a while now. It has invested around $2 billion in the last three years and this number is only going to increase. It has already invested in many Indian startups like Paytm, digital payment platform, BigBasket, an online grocery startup. Zomato, XpressBees, and Snapdeal were amongst some of its high-value investments.
The growth of startups in India has made it one of the favourite destinations for the venture capital firms lately. Chinese investors have been aggressively looking for new startups to fund. India has also become a hotbed for investors and venture capital firms from the US as well. US-based firms dominating the Indian market include Accel Partners, Matrix Partners, Sequoia Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners.