General Atlantic, a growth equity investor, expects to make up to $1 billion in new investments in India over the next few years, betting on businesses built around Prime Minister Narendra Modi's push to increase financial inclusion and technology usage.
"We are tracking big policy changes announced by the government that will accelerate the creation of digital infrastructure for services and products," said Shantanu Rastogi, managing director and the firm's India head. "Affordable supply, affordable infrastructure for financial inclusion, and affordable data are all big themes for us," he explained.
Rastogi compared the planned investment to General Atlantic's recent investments of $500 million to $1.2 billion in Southeast Asia and India. Over the past two decades, the New York-based company has invested $4.6 billion in India. Globally, the private equity firm manages approximately $71 billion in assets.
PhonePe Pvt., a Walmart Inc.-owned digital payments app with over 450 million registered users, is one of the companies it has invested in in India.
General Atlantic shifted its focus a decade ago from supporting companies that provide export-oriented services to investing in consumer-focused enterprise software, health care, and financial services companies, according to Rastogi.
According to Rastogi, General Atlantic has backed ASG Eye Hospitals and KIMS Hospitals in the country.
According to Varun Talukdar, a principal at the firm, the government has launched production-linked incentives for medical device and pharmaceutical companies in India in order to reduce treatment costs and make the country more self-sufficient. According to Talukdar, this has resulted in investments in lower-cost medical equipment and consumables manufactured in India.
"India is really becoming a very interesting manufacturing hub for a lot of these medical devices and consumables," Rastogi said, adding that four or five large companies could emerge in the next ten years.