As 2020 began with a pandemic outbreak that reportedly originated from an animal market selling meats of various animals in Wuhan, China and spread across the world taking millions of lives, China has potential for a more powerful impact on India than the COVID-19 virus.
Yes, and it is the economy especially with the $6.2 billion of Chinese money in the Indian economy in myriad sectors, including Indian startups, tech companies, smartphones and applications (apps).
FDI or Foreign Direct Investments which usually looks positive for the economy with increased capital inflow and promoted economic growth, it is a major route Chinese and American companies to invest in Indian companies.
Chinese investment giants are some of the major investors in the Indian startup. These investors include Alibaba Group, Tencent, Steadview Capital and Didi Chuxing dominate investments in over 18 of the 30 Unicorn companies in India including companies like Bigbasket, Zomato, Delhivery, Byju's Flipkart, Make my trip, Paytm, Policy Bazaar, Swiggy, among others, have millions of dollars in Chinese investments. In fact 18 of those Unicorn companies in India have over $3,500 million of Chinese investments.
Amidst the tensed up Indo-China situation and the ban of the Chinese application or china related applications, here is the list of Chinese Funded Companies in India (List of India's Start-up Company funded by Chinese Investors):
Well, Paytm (Pay Through Mobile) is a leading Indian electronic payment and e-commerce company which is used by many in the country daily to transfer money with just a few clicks on the mobile screen. But, it can be surprising to know that the concept, inspiration, apart from the investment are from China.
Recently as the Indian and China geographic tensions rose, a CEO of a leading UPI app in India mentioned how Paytm is a Chinese app, well, it is not entirely false as Paytm is the first Indian company to receive funding from Chinese e-commerce Company Alibaba which is now raised over $625 million and Vijay Shekhar, the founder of the company currently owns less than 20% while Alibaba has 40% stake.
Swiggy is the top Indian food delivery application in the country which was founded by Sriharsha Majety, Nandan Reddy and Rahul Jaimini in 2014, has their first investment of $2 million from Accel and SAIF Partners, along with additional investment from Norwest Venture Partners. In 2017, Chinese giants like Meituan-Dianping, Tencent Holdings and Hillhouse Capital Group have invested an estimated more than $500 million which is a great number from the total of $1.6 billion raised across multiple rounds.
Is Bigbasket a Chinese company? Well, it does come under the 30 unicorns which were founded by Abhinay Choudhari, Hari Menon, Vipul Parekh, VS Sudhakar in 2011. The online food and grocery online store have raised over $1 billion and most of which has come from foreign investors including Alibaba who became BigBasket largest shareholder when it helped the company raise $300 million in its series E round in 2018.
While Alibaba Group was still the largest stakeholder with 26.26% stake in the company as of 2019, in 2020, its investment $50 million into Big Basket.
The Gurgaon based company which has been offering contactless dining amidst the COVId-19 outbreak in India is also on the list of china funded Indian companies founded by Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah in 2008. Initially funded by Indian online giant Info Edge, in 2018, Alibaba's financial services company Ant Financial became a stakeholder in Zomato with an investment of $200 million followed by an investment of $210 million in the same year which contributes to Zomato's total raise of $914.6 million.
MakeMyTrip, India's one of the largest online travel company which was recently bought the Ibibo Group has Naspers (South African Based) and Tencent (Chinese investment holding company) as investors with 91% and 9% stake in Ibibo respectively making them the single largest shareholder in the company.
Flipkart, the Indian e-commerce company which is now owned by Walmart, which was founded in 2007 by two IITians (Delhi) Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal. Recently, it has raised the biggest ever start-up funding from Tencent Holdings Ltd, eBay Inc., and Microsoft Corp.
Leading India's mobile apps based transportation network scene, OLA was invested in by the Chinese car app company 'Didi Chuying (Didi Kuaidi)' which is one of the 21 investors from which Ola has raised around Rs. 8200 crores fund.
Chinese investors Steadview Capital did make their move on the 2010 founded company by Bhavish Agarwal and Ankit Bhati in 2014. In 2018, Chinese gaming behemoth and another biggest Chinese investor Tencent Holdings participated in a massive $1.1 billion funding round along with Softbank and RNT Capital, making it a major shareholder with 10.4% stake in Ola.
THREE MAJOR CHINESE INVESTORS WITH BIGGEST STARTUPS IN INDIA
While Tencent also has a major share in Byju's, Ola, Dream11, Flipkart, Hike, Swiggy, Udaan, Niyo, Gaana, Doubtnut, Khatabook, MX Player, Pocket FM, Practo and many more, Alibaba has invested in Paytm, Bigbasket, Paytm Mall, Snapdeal, Zomato, Heal of, Ticket now, Rapido, Vidooly, Xpressbees and the list of Indian companies with investment from china continues with the Chinese company Xiaomi that has invested in Hungama, Sharechat (Indian Tik Tok alternative), Rapido, ZestMoney, Oye! Rickshaw, City Mall, etc.
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