Tiger Global’s aggression in Indian Start-ups is keeping the fat pay checks coming, but the impact of this aggression is yet to be gauged in the long run. The Indian Start-up Ecosystem is abuzz with talks about Tiger Global. They have been showing their bullishness in India and are set to play a pivotal role in the next generation of Indian start-ups.
The No. 1 Investor in Start-ups this year
Tiger Global is currently the top investor in Indian start-ups, especially in unicorn start-ups. It has ousted ‘Sequoia Capital’ from its position to assume the title of being the top investor in 2021. This year, they have already participated in 15 start-up funding deals. Among these deals, 9 of them were unicorn start-ups funded by Tiger in the first half of this year. The Unicorn league in the Indian start-up ecosystem has about 52 start-ups, out of 25 have received funding from Tiger making it a 50% shareholder in the unicorn club.
Start-ups funded by Tiger Global since 2020
Freshly funded by Tiger this year are GoMechanic (car services platform), ClassPlus (a B2B ed-tech start-up headquartered in Noida), and Kutumb, a Community Platform and Social Networking App. Not too long ago Plum (health insurance start-up) also bagged investment led by Tiger Global. Tiger Global’s portfolio mainly comprises Unicorns and Soonicorns (soon to be unicorns) in India. Other start-ups which received funding this year by Tiger Global include:
- Innovaccer (health tech)
- Infra.Market (real estate tech)
- Groww (fintech)
- ShareChat (regional language social media)
- ChargeBee (enterprise SaaS)
- Zomato (food tech)
- Urban Company (online marketplace)
- Gupshup (messaging services)
- Moglix (B2B commerce)
- CRED (fintech)
- Koo (social networking)
- ProgCap (fintech) and
- Apna (professional networking)
In the year 2020, Tiger has invested in 13 Indian start-ups.
‘‘
Tiger Global is currently the top investor in Indian start-ups, especially in unicorn start-ups.
What’s in it for me?
It’s a fact that Tiger Global is interested mainly in later stage start-ups and in post Initial Public Offering (IPO) deals. Although the investment rounds and the valuations look fabulous on paper, the truth is that Tiger makes ‘structured investments with exclusive rights for downside protection’. It may seem on the surface that Tiger is placing bets instead of making strategic investments. But if truth be told, they are making informed choices and choosing deals with ‘momentum in diverse sectors’ which have ‘volume scale’.
In the recent past, Tiger has maintained diversity in the sectors which start-ups belong to and the stage they are in while investing. As a case study, if we look at the sectors which Tiger Global has invested in since the pandemic began (ed-tech, job tech and fintech), these are the industries which have been successful during the pandemic. These are the most promising industries which will receive future investments from Tiger. D2C companies with pan India presence and global market opportunities have a high chance of gaining Tiger Global’s interest.
