Tiger Global banks on other Indian bets

After Flipkart, firms like Ola, Freshworks, CarTrade, PolicyBazaar may provide it exits

Even as Tiger Global basks in the glory of its multi-bagger exit from Flipkart — it will make $3.3 billion on its $1 billion investment in the Indian e-commerce firm — the New Yorkbased hedge fund is likely to make decent returns from some of its other investments in India.

These include used car platform CarTrade, Software as a service (SaaS) player Freshworks, cab aggregator Ola, insurance aggregator PolicyBazaar, English learning firm CultureAlley with an app called Hello English, among others.

Many of these companies have scaled and executed their business model well and are more likely to provide Tiger Global its next exits from India, say industry observers but none would be like a Flipkart.

“I don’t think there will be another Flipkart for anyone in the next five years. These $20 billion exits don’t happen easily,’’ says the head of a venture capital (VC) firm. “In the US, a $200-million exit is considered good. If you have a $1 billion company in your portfolio, it is a great achievement,’’ he says.

“A $20-billion exit is an outlier. Flipkart is the largest e-commerce deal in the world till date. In VC, if you have a $0.5-billion or $1-billion (valuation) exit and you make a $100 million on the deal, it is considered a compelling outcome,’’ added the person quoted above.

Many companies in Tiger’s portfolio have done well. Freshworks is

the biggest success story in SaaS from India, Ola has mirrored Flipkart to take on global rivals, CarTrade and PolicyBazaar have emerged as leaders in used cars and insurance aggregation.

“Many of these companies will give Tiger Global an exit, not like Flipkart but significant exits. It depends on how much stake Tiger owns in these companies. In Flipkart, it doubled down and owned a large stake,” says the managing partner of a Mumbai-based VC firm.

“PolicyBazaar owns the insurance space, has a lot of customer data and can start participating in underwriting,’’ says an investor in the firm. But these companies could provide a $1-billion exit and not $10-billion.

Tiger Global has invested over a two dozen start-ups in India. It has exited over half a dozen companies like BabyOye (acquired by M&M), Carat Lane (Titan), Myntra (Flipkart), Commonfloor (Quikr), when they got acquired by bigger rivals whose names appear in brackets.

Tiger Global’s portfolio includes other firms like B2B payments firm Razorpay, news app Inshorts, grocery app Grofers, messenger app Hike, logistics players like BlackBuck and Delhivery, robotics firm GreyOrange, ShopClues, Ather Energy, Roposo, and NestAway.

Many of them like Razorpay, Zinka Logistics (BlackBuck), Delhivery, GreyOrange, NestAway, and CultureAlley (Hello English) have done well. Some companies like Ather Energy are in the early zone.