I Truly Believe that the BSE 30 is Under Threat

Sudhir Sethi, founder and chairman of IDG Ventures India, on how innovation and technology are changing the entrepreneurial ecosystem in India and why new-tech companies are the gamechangers.

- Anshul Dhamija

India-focussed technology venture capital fund IDG Ventures India has raised about ₹2,600 crore over the last 10 years of which it has invested about ₹1,700 crore in a slew of Indian startups. To date, the fund has exited from 13 startups that it had invested in, including Myntra, Lenskart, Hiree and Manthan.

Sudhir Sethi, 58, founder and chairman of IDG Ventures India, tells Forbes India that he’s now betting big on “deep-tech” startups. “We are investing in technologies which will be relevant 5-7 years down the line,” he says. In a freewheeling chat, Sethi, who was a part of the launch team of HCL’s and subsequently Wipro’s computer division, shares his views on the Indian startup ecosystem, high valuations of startups and what excites him about Indian innovation. Edited excerpts:

IDG Ventures India (along with Axilor Ventures) launched a Frontier Tech Innovators Programme, which would invest in and partner with new-age disruptive startups. What was the need for such a programme?

The Frontier Tech programme is interesting. We saw innovations over the years, not in a wave, but in pieces. We saw them in software and medical devices. The thought of Frontier Tech came to our minds in the last three months of 2016. In India, robotics will improve and other technology will come in as well. We got in touch with TeamIndus as we loved their audacious approach to land a rover on the moon. That’s what innovation and entrepreneurship is all about. We continue to talk to them (we have not invested in them as yet). When I think of technology, I think of Artificial Intelligence (AI), virtual reality, machine language, robotics, defence/space, so we thought we will look for these companies through the Frontier Tech programme. Our internal name for the programme is ‘