Singapore’s GIC makes a strong comeback into desi startup market

Chennai: GIC of Singapore, the early backers of Indian companies is making a strong comeback into Indian startup space, writing cheques at a rapid pace, indicating its renewed interest in the Indian story.

For 20 months between January 2019 and October 2020, the sovereign investor from Singapore was dormant with no investments, new or follow on.

However, since October last year, when it signed a $100 million cheque for Razor Pay, it has been galloping ahead. And in the past 90 days five investments, of which three new and two follow on have been concluded.

Investors in the Indian space are broadly three categories viz., opportunistic, PE and strategic. GIC was donning the role of a strategic investor in Indian space, but has now changed its track and looking at the PE investment space too.

“GIC has suddenly become active in the investment space. Earlier their bets were more strategic (for example: investing in Bharti Airtel was to help SingTel come into partnership with Bharti), but now they are making financial investments like a PE investor,” said Arun Natarajan, chief executive officer (CEO) of Venture Intelligence, a firm that tracks VC/PE activity. Indian PE veteran Temasek too on its part has sharpened its focus on Indian investments.

For instance, over the past three years Temasek has backed 17 companies, of which six were signed over the past 90 days and within which four were new and two follow on.

“Normally the roles of investment appeared defined between Temasek and GIC, without any overlap of roles on investments, not anymore,” Natarajan said.