Chinese funds, expertise ‘irreplaceable’ for Indian tech start-ups: analysts

Behind rising Indian tech start-ups, venture capital (VC) and a slew of hightech giants from China have been eagerly investing in the South Asian country in recent years. However, the recent trend of “boycott China” posts on Indian social media following the border clash could stunt those investments and impact India’s start-up ecosystem.

Chinese firms tend to be the most active in India’s start-up space. More than 75 companies engaged in sectors ranging from e-commerce and fintech to social media and logistics have Chinese investors, according to Mumbai-based think-tank Gateway House.

A majority of India’s 30 unicorns – start-ups with valuations of over $1 billion – have Chinese investors, according to the think tank. Investments made by nearly two dozen Chinese tech companies and funds, led by Chinese tech giants like Alibaba, ByteDance and Tencent, have funded 92 Indian start-ups including India’s largest digital payment platform Paytm, school learning app Byju’s, Indian hotel chain Oyo and share-riding company Ola. TikTok, the short-video platform owned by ByteDance, has overtaken YouTube in India with 200 million subscribers.

However, if the hashtag “boycott China” is trending and anti-China sentiment remains in the South Asian country, India’s start-ups are bound to suffer, experts warned.

Richard Ma, a Beijing-based internet analyst who has been closely following the online trend in India, told the Global Times the current period in India’s internet industry is similar to China in earlier years.

“India’s start-up ecosystem is the biggest loser. Because of this change a lot of investors from China are holding back their investments,” said Mahendra Swarup, managing director of the India-based Venture Gurukool Capability Fund

In the last couple of years, more than $6 billion worth of investment in start-ups has come from China in addition to investments by large Chinese companies like Xiaomi, Oppo,

Vivo, TCL and large automobile companies, according to

Swarup.