INDIA BUSINESS WORLD - JULY - AUGUST - 2007
The Month that was ...

GOOGLE BUYS 30% STAKE IN APIDC VENTURE FUND

AS PART of its strategy to invest in technology startups in India, Google is acquiring close to 30 % stake in a venture capital fund floated by Ventureast and Andhra Pradesh Industrial Development Corporation (APIDC).

Ventureast and APIDC have formed a fund called Ventureast Tenet Fund II. The fund invests in startup companies engaged in providing technology solutions for addressing the needs of small and medium enterprises, IT and communications technology sectors and environment oriented technology sectors.

The corpus of the fund is initially pegged at $ 15 million, with contributions to be made by investors over a period of 5 years.

The investment is being routed through Google Holdings, Singapore. Google has earlier made investments in two early-stage venture capital funds, Seedfund and Erasmic. India is the first country where Google has made a limited partner investment in early-stage funds. Google operates the world's largest internet search engine.

Google had stated that seed stage companies in India with good ideas have very few avenues for financial support. It believes a small amount of what the venture capitalists invest in India trickles down to the small firms or the startups. Google seeks to close this gap by investing in early-stage funds, which identify and finance startups and help them grow.