Here comes Startup India.
It’s the latest from IUndian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who just introduced a set of initiatives aimed at helping the country’s fledgling tech companies and their investors.
“One of the first Silicon Valley venture capital firms to take advantage of Startup India is Storm Ventures, which just launched a new fund for SaaS startups in India,” confims TechCrunch. “The firm has allocated at least $10 million to the Storm India SaaS Fund and plans to increase that amount depending on how quickly capital is deployed, says venture partner Anshu Sharma. The money will come from the $180 million fund Storm raised last year.”
Reportedly, Storm India SaaS Fund seeks companies with an annual run rate between $1 million to $10 million; it plans to participate mainly in seed and Series A rounds.
“We invest mostly in companies that are based in the U.S., but what we’ve noticed over the last few years is that India is now where China was five to seven years ago,” Sharma told TechCrunch. “There will emerge a whole set of new application companies to support the new e-commerce and payment ecosystem, so we think it’s great timing.”
Could it help India develop its own Silicon Valley?
“Entrepreneurs are now excited about the potential of India. There is a feeling in Silicon Valley that the government of India understands startup ecosystems and is making it easy to do business in India,” says Sharma. “The most interesting thing to me is how people from small towns have global ambitions now, which is something that I frankly didn’t see growing up in India. The world was so large that you didn’t dream of serving a customer in America when you were growing up in a mid-sized town in India,” Sharma added.
According to TechCrunch’s report, India’s e-commerce market is forecast to be worth $100 billion by the close of this decade.
