MUMBAI/BENGALURU: Venture capital firm
SAIF Partners
, an early-investor in
Paytm, is expected to rake in $300-400 million in cash by partially selling its stake in the digital payments and commerce company as part of the company’s latest financing round, people familiar with the development said. This will be one of the largest cash returns clocked by a domestic venture fund from a consumer internet startup in a largely exit-starved tech ecosystem.
Multi-stage fund
SAIF
is one of the rare investors to have consistently drawn exits from its India portfolio, including online travel booking site MakeMyTrip and local search platform Justdial (both of which went public). A majority of investors in the technology and internet sector in India are currently sitting on paper returns as their portfolio companies have not gone public or been sold, creating a sense of skittishness among the VC community.
As reported in our March 29 edition, Tiger Global, the largest investor in
Flipkart, is currently negotiating to sell $1 billion worth of its shares to SoftBank as part of a deal to get the Japanese investor on board the e-tailer. This will also see SoftBank sell
Snapdeal to Flipkart. This liquidity event will give Tiger the much needed cash from its investment in the Bengaluru-based company after having ploughed in almost $1 billion. All told, SAIF has pumped in $75 million since first backing One97 Communications.