Soros, Google, Omidyar Put $17m into Indian Start Ups
From: The Mint
This will likely be the only private fund based at a university and among the few that hope to have a social impact such as creating jobs and growing sectors that help people, who earn less, in addition to achieving returns.
Some funds, particularly those interested in clean-technology investments, have asserted that both goals can be achieved and with high returns.
A person familiar with socially conscious seed fund, who did not wish to be named, said that right now it is an experiment to see if both these goals can be met. Achieving double-digit returns in this type of investment is considered successful, even though typical private equity returns have been around 30%.
When I started reading this report, I thought it was about a new US-based social entrepreneurship fund (because that’s why I was researching Omidyar). When my brain registered “in Hyderabad,” I remembered we’re really not in Kansas, anymore.
It triggered the incredible experiences I had with 40-odd young Arab entrepreneurs and Agents of Change we met in Bahrain last December when I was developing FIKR 6 for the Arab Thought Foundation (ATF). All of this reminded me of the insularity of American thinking.
What’s the nuance? Of course these progressive leaders are investing in India. Not only does it provide them a way to diversify risk from the SF echo-chamber, it also stimulates another area of the global brain. Opportunities to cross-pollinate back into the US networks are not lost on AlwaysOn, but the majority of today’s rhetoric is self-referential, at best.
It’s interesting to note that this story topped my del.icio.us search of ‘omidyar.’ I just learned that The Mint is a JV between the Hindustan Times (leading Indian paper and media group, with early ties to Mahatma Ghandi) and The Wall St. Journal – great for a recursive demonstration of the point of this post.
March 16th, 2008 at 9:36 pm
[...] who is there to answer Vardi’s call? Will funds like the one George Soros, Google and Pierre Omidyar just announced start to address this space? Can Vardi attract the interest of groups like Endeavor, who are doing [...]