Few weeks back it was reported that Indian government is seriously mooting the idea of setting up an advisory panel that will be dedicated towards fostering the growth of the Indian startup ecosystem. According to Economic Times (ET), the panel would include CEOs and co-founders of some of the most high profile Indian startups including Ola’s Bhavish Agarwal and Byju’s BYJU Raveendran.
Now latest report published in ET claims that marquee global investors will also be part of this advisory panel. While earlier reports had already reported that VCs and investors would be included in the advisory panel, the information of global investors like SoftBank, Tiger Global and Naspers will be part of panel has been revealed only through the latest reports.
SoftBank, Tiger Global and Naspers have been among the most prolific investors in the Indian startup ecosystem. They have backed startups that have become unicorns and are today considered amongst the poster boys of the Indian startup industry. Be it the likes of e-commerce giant like Flipkart, digital payment leader Paytm, popular budget player Oyo or the foodtech major Swiggy.
These three global marque investors have undeniably played an important role in making India an important global startup hub. Their total investment in India till date is estimated to be nearly $18-20 bn. This investment figure is likely to increase sporadically in the current financial year, after Tiger Global announced raising of new funding corpus of $3.8 bn earlier this week. After raising the latest funding corpus, the New York based investment giant said that emerging economies like India and China will continue to stay in their investment radar.
SoftBank, Tiger Global and Naspers have so far not commented on this report.
Report further claims that the official announcement of the startup advisory council will be made in a meeting that is scheduled to be conducted after the budget. The meeting will be reportedly presided by Trade and Commerce minister Piyush Goyal.