Surprise, surprise, Reliance Technology Ventures and Nexus India Capital have been voted among the world’s top 100 venture capital firms by Red Herring — see the list here. They are the only two Indian firms on the list.
Nexus India Capital is a Mumbai-based venture capital firm that manages a $320 million India-focused funds pool. The firm has a portfolio of about 20 companies, including Dimdim, Kirusa, Komli, D-Light and Suminter India Organics. Founders Suvir Sujan, Sandeep Singhal and Naren Gupta came together in 2006 to start Nexus after having spent several years as entrepreneurs and early stage venture investors in the US and India.
Reliance Technology Ventures, like Nexus, also started up in 2006 and is promoted by the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group. Its chosen sectors of focus are technology, media and entertainment and telecom. One of its earliest investments was travel portal Yatra — this was the deal, in early 2006, when Reliance teamed up with Norwest Venture Partners and TV-18 to seed the startup. Other investments include Seedfund, Dhama Apparel, Suvidhaa Infoserve and Pelago. This is essentially a corporate venture capital firm, like Intel Capital, which invests from a proprietary funds pool, i.e. does not raise money from third-party investors like Nexus does, for instance.
Congratulations to both but I’m still puzzled about their inclusion on the list. Not because their capabilities are in doubt, but because of the criteria that Red Herring has put out for choosing the top 100 — “this group represents almost all of the exits, returns, or liquidity events that have happened since 2003″. What am I missing here?
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Looks like plain lobbying – do these funds have an exit yet? but then, its just a red herring out there
How come people like ICICI ventures and sequoia india are not there, with more exits in their kitty?
Though the statement isnt perfectly accurate. Other VCs operating in India with full time staff, who are on the list include Accel, Artiman, Battery, Bessemer, Bluerun, Canaan, DFJ, Greylock, IDG, JAFCO, Lightspeed, Matrix, Mayfield, NEA, Norwest and Sequoia. So sure, ventureeast and helion are not on the list, but pretty much everyone else is!