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India's top 25
venture capital firms Forbes India Lists
Venture capitalists are handsomely rewarded
for making accurate predictions and identifying
a trend before others—these are the prominent
names who played a pivotal role in the rise of
some of the biggest companies and startups
today

BY SAYAN CHAKRABORTY, Forbes India Sta!

3 min read

PUBLISHED:
Jul 19, 2019 01:59:09 PM IST

UPDATED:
Jul 26, 2019 12:17:39 PM IST

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Illustration: Sameer Pawar

Making predictions is tough. So is spotting a

pattern before it becomes a trend. There are a
bunch of professionals whose job is to do both—
venture capital (VC) executives.

Flipkart wouldn’t have possibly happened had

someone at Accel Partners not believed that two
young Amazon executives could build Amazon’s
bête noire in India. Similarly, Oyo probably
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Agarwal had somebody at Lightspeed Venture behind Wat-a-Burger
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In venture capital, patience and reposng faith in an

underdog is crucial to success. Take Sequoia India.
Pine Labs, an investment Sequoia made about a Forbes India
537,719 likes
decade ago, is set to become a unicorn. Sequoia’s
stake in Pine Labs is likely to be close to a billion
dollars post the company’s latest fundraise. Like Page Sign Up

Bold bets become extremely rewarding in venture

capital. Lightspeed India is a case in point. They
backed ShareChat at a time when not many people
believed that a vernacular social media platform
TWEETS
can make a dent in Facebook or Twitter’s universe.
ShareChat did, with élan. Its valuation has soared Tweets by @forbes_india
to nearly ₹3,500 crore and if things don’t turn Forbes India
@forbes_india
topsy-turvy, Lightspeed will rake in rich profits.
From Conor McGregor to Kevin Durant, here are the
world's top 10 highest-paid athletes | Video by

In the world of private equity, General Atlantic @ruchasharma@TheNotoriousMMA @Forbes

@KDTrey5
stands out. The firm has invested $2.6 billion in 27
Indian companies and realised $2.4 billion, having
exited 13 investments. Sandeep Naik, managing
director and head of India and Asia Pacific at
General Atlantic, says that the firm will also focus
on the Bharat consumer model.

Investment thesis will evolve. So will the markets. 2h

In the world of private investments, however, one

Forbes India Retweeted
thing will remain constant—spotting them early For the love of Monchi
and spotting them right. @ruchasharma

One thing is common between these athletes, their

businesses off the field did well during the
Prominent names who played a pivotal role in the pandemic. Therefore sans spectator games or
cancelled tournaments did not hurt their
rise of some of the biggest companies today. earnings.#LifeOfEditingNoob
Embed View on Twitter

Methodology: We have considered startups that

have either raised funds at a valuation of at least
₹1,000 crore or were bought at a minimum
valuation of ₹600 crore until December 2018. We
accessed the cap tables of such companies from
Tracxn to understand the firms’ current
shareholding, how much they are currently worth
and how much they have grown since the first
investment. A premium was put on factors like
early investments and high holding. Also, deals
done by investors at their previous funds haven’t
been taken into account. Investor names are in
alphabetical order. Only India funds have been
considered.

Click here to see Forbes India's comprehensive

coverage on the Covid-19 situation and its impact
on life, business and the economy​

(This story appears in the 02 August, 2019 issue of

Forbes India. You can buy our tablet version from
Magzter.com. To visit our Archives, click here.)

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India's top 25 venture capitalist "rms VC

Tracxn Funding Lightspeed India

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Sandeep Naik

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Naresh Kumar Juneja

We want to raise venture capital funds for senior
secondary schools who are either our existing &
future franchisees.
on Feb 4, 2020

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