Unperturbed by the tax benefit restrictions proposed in this year's Budget for venture capital investments to certain sectors, US based VC fund New Enterprise Associates has lined up $200 million to be invested in the country.
NEA is currently looking at various technology related areas and might finalise some of its investments in the next few weeks, NEA India Vice President Ben Mathias told PTI from Bangalore.
"Telecom, media and KPO (knowledge process outsourcing) are three areas we are looking at and they have emerged as significant interest to us," Mathias said.
We plan to invest $200 million fund mostly in IT-related Indian companies over the next 2 to 3 years, he said, adding that NEA plans to look at non-IT companies also moving forward.
Besides
IT, energy is another space NEA is bullish on, while it is also planning a separate pool to invest in healthcare companies.
Mathias said NEA had also looked at energy sector for its proposed 200 million investment, but nothing interesting emerged and currently it was looking at companies from telecom, media and KPO sectors.
Interestingly, Finance Minister proposed in this year's union budget to restrict tax benefits to a specific set of sectors, which do not include some of the favourite areas for VC funding such as offshoring services, telecom, media and entertainment and retail.
According to Indian Venture Capital Association Chairman Sourabh Srivastava, India received $6.5 to $7 billion in venture capital last year, out of which over 50 per cent went to IT and telecom sectors.
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