Q: What is your take on secondary market conditions right now because they have formed the benchmark of valuations that you can access venture capital prospects with? Do you think things have eased off a bit or secondary markets still remain quite challenging?

A: I think they have actually eased off a little bit. But I would say that areas such as inflation continue to be a little bit of a concern because as VCs or PEs, we are always looking at a five-year horizon. In that respect you always want to take care of growth not levelling off. So to that extent some impact of the US markets and maybe even some impact of inflation will continue to see markets to be a little bit rangebound.

Q: Do you see interesting opportunities in sectors like infrastructure or real estate, which seemed quite hot about a year back, but increasingly there are lots of question marks? How convinced are you about opportunities there?

A: I think the opportunities there will continue to exist. This entire growth is being driven by investments. If you don’t want growth to taper off, investments in infrastructure and areas such as those will certainly continue. We also see some very interesting trends in just core technology where product companies are starting to come up in Internet and media and even mobile. So those are some of the areas, which we find extremely interesting both from a venture capital as well as private equity investment opportunity.

Q: I believe you are saying interesting deals into financial services space as well, what leg of it looks exciting right now? Are you referring to the whole brokerage space or the non-banking financial companies (NBFC’s) and what are your thoughts on valuations over there?

A: I think valuations have actually started tapering down, they have become more realistic. I think what we find in the financial services is that it’s still a long-term growth story in terms of domestic consumption. If you look at the number of accounts whether you look at the banking space or even the brokerage space or even just generally other microfinance space, adoption in the economy has been great in the last five-years but there is a lot of room for growth even now and that is one area we are looking at. 

Q: For venture capitalists such as you, what is the big risk on investing in India right now because through this year, we have been getting the sense that a lot of money has been sitting on the sidelines?

A: We believe the long-term growth story is intact and we have become very aggressive with the markets closing and the valuations becoming more realistic. We are actually stepping up the level of investment in India. So from our standpoint, I think the real question is - will growth continue to exist in a 3-7 years' timeframe? We feel very bullish about that.

Q: How do you see the value being unlocked in many of these Internet, mobile ventures that you are speaking about? Do you see a lot of listings in next couple of years in the Indian or the overseas market? Or do you think these properties might actually be embedded in larger media and IT companies?

A: I think it will be a mixture of both. India has a lot of corporates. So you will see IPOs, like you have seen in Naukri, and you would also see a lot of acquisitions taking place especially as broadband comes in. It is still a nascent right now for Internet. But in a couple of years maybe 3-5 years, you will see that sector booming like it is in China.