New
Delhi: US-based VC fund New Enterprise Associates
(NEA) has lined up $200 million for investing in India.
NEA is currently looking at various technology related
areas and might finalise some of its investments in the
next few weeks, says Ben Mathias, NEA's vice president,
India.
Mathias
said that telecom, media and KPO (knowledge process outsourcing)
were three areas that NEA significant interest in. "We
plan to invest $ 200 million fund mostly in IT-related
Indian companies over the next two - three years,"
he said, adding that in the future NEA would also look
at non-IT companies.
He
also said that NEA was also bullish on energy and had
in fact looked at the sector for its $200-million initial
investment plans, nothing of interest had emerged. He
said NEA was planning a separate pool to invest in healthcare
companies.
Interestingly,
none of these areas qualify for tax benefits for venture
capital firms, as the finance minister has proposed in
this year's Budget restricting tax benefits to specific
set of sectors like nanotechnology and seed research.
The usually favoured areas for VC investments such as
offshoring services (BPOs / KPOs), telecom, media and
entertainment and retail do not qualify for tax benefits.
Of
the $6.5-7 billion in venture capital investments in India
last year over 50 per cent went to IT and telecom sectors.
NEA
has made six investments in India so far, which include
Bangalore-based Sasken, a software R&D firm in Noida
and WiMax firm Telsima.
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