General Atlantic (GA), which completes two decades in India this month, has been among the earliest backers of companies in the region GA, which completes two decades in India this month, has been among the earliest backers of companies in the region MUMBAI : General Atlantic, which has invested over .2 billion in Indian companies such as Byju’s, Jio Platforms and Reliance Retail, will double its India investments over the next 10 years, senior executives at the private equity firm said. “Between 2022 and 2032, we will mostly invest more than double the amount we invested in the last decade," Sandeep Naik, managing director and head of India and Southeast Asia for the firm, said in an interview.
Investments over the next decade will be focused on companies in sectors such as consumer, financial services, healthcare, life sciences, technology and climate, Naik said.
So far, General Atlantic has primarily built its growth investments in India, but it aims to increase the pace of its buyout deals and focus more on mid-market IT services firms, the executives said. “We are globally adding buyout as a capability to GA.
And that’s the direction in which we will look at.
But I would say that most of the deals that GA does will be minority, and buyouts are just another toolkit and a skill set we have added.
But if you think about India, growth is where the opportunity is.
So, could we do buyouts?
Yes," Naik said.
It also expects to make significant investments in the mid-market IT services space, which it feels it may have missed out on over the past decade because of its focus on value-added services. “I would add two areas in which we should have done more mid-market buyouts, first is IT services.
And that’s an area where many of our peers have invested significantly.
The second area we see more opportunities is software coming out of India," Shantanu Rastogi, managing director and head of India at the firm, said.
According to Rastogi, there are buyout opportunities in tech and tech-enabled businesses, particularly those with double-digit organic growth, sticky revenues and high gross margins.
In 1998, India was the first emerging market that GA invested in.
For the first 10 years that the firm set up shop in India, i.e., between 2001 and 2011, it invested roughly around 0 million in deals such as Mu Sigma, Fourcee Infra and Asian Genco.