April 24th, 2006
FT Special Report on Indian Infrastructure
Today’s Financial Times is carrying a full supplement called Indian Infrastructure 2006. I read the whole thing and I assure you, it’s well worth it. The online version is behind a subscription wall, but I’d strongly recommend that you buy the print version or subscribe to the 15-day free trial of the newspaper. Just make sure you read it.
March 28th, 2006
Vinod Khosla Makes Microfinance Investment
For a long while now, rumours have floated about Vinod Khosla’s personal interest in the microfinance space. People have speculated as to whether Khosla was raising a fund of his own, offering lines of credit etc etc. The Indian newspaper, Business Standard, today confirmed that Khosla has in fact made an investment, with a couple of other VCs, in one of India’s fastest growing MFIs.
Top Silicon Valley venture capitalist (VC) Vinod Khosla, along with other social venture capitalists, Small Industries Development Bank of India (Sidbi) and the SKS borrower community, made a $2.5 million investment in SKS Microfinance today. The deal is the biggest investment in a microfinance institution in the country, a media statement said. SKS will use the money to access commercial debt and increase operations from its current base of 200,000 clients to 700,000 in 2006-07. SKS serves over 3,000 villages spread across five states - Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa. It has a portfolio of $18 million and has achieved an annual growth rate of 250 per cent.
Of the $2.5 million investment, Khosla contributed about $450,000, while tech entrepreneurs Ravi Reddy and Sandeep Tungare, co-founders of Vistaar Technologies, and Unitus Equity Fund (UEF) also pitched in with about $450K each. The rest of the money was raised by SKS borrowers and SIDBI.
March 17th, 2006
Investing in India: A 20/20 Perspective
The South Asia Business Association (SABA) at Columbia Business School is organizing a fabulous conference on April 14th, titled Investing in India: A 20/20 Perspective. The keynote speeches are by Sam Pitroda (widely regarded as the father of India’s telecom revolution) and Kanwal Rekhi of Excelan and TiE. Other speakers include Jagdish Bhagwati, Anjali Kumar of Acumen Fund, Sonal Shah (a good friend of IPEG), David Good of the TATA group, Sreedhar Menon, chairman of Viteos capital markets, and Ajay Sharma, the director of Merill Lynch’s Pvt Equity Group. There are panels on capital markets, private equity and social enterprise, among others. If you’re in the NYC area on the 14th and have an interest in investing in India (in any form), I’d urge you to attend. You can register for the conference here.