General Atlantic to deploy up to $1 billion a year in India: Report

For the next few years, growth-equity investor General Atlantic expects to deploy up to $1 billion in new investments in India annually, said a media report. This is in line with the firm's plan of betting on businesses built around Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s push to expand financial inclusion and increase technology usage.

Shantanu Rastogi, managing director and the firm’s India head, said that the company is tracking big policy changes announced by the government that will accelerate creation of digital infrastructure for services and products, reported Bloomberg.

“Affordable supply, affordable infrastructure for financial inclusion, affordable data are big themes for us,” he said.

The New York-based company has deployed $4.6 billion in India over more than two decades.

Rastogi said that a decade ago, General Atlantic transitioned from backing companies providing export-oriented services to focusing on investments targeting India’s rising domestic consumption, largely in consumer-focused enterprise software, health care and financial services companies.

It is to be noted that Walmart-owned fintech company PhonePe is among the firms General Atlantic has backed in India.

Recently, PhonePe raised an additional tranche of $100 million from General Atlantic and its co-investors. In January 2023, General Atlantic infused $350 million into the Bengaluru-based company.

Within healthcare, General Atlantic has backed ASG Eye Hospitals and KIMS Hospitals in the country, according to Rastogi.

Varun Talukdar, a principal at the firm noted that the government has launched production-linked incentives for medical devices and pharmaceutical companies in India, to bring down the cost of treatment and make the country more self-reliant. This has led to investment in lower-cost medical equipment and consumables that are being built in India, he said, as per the report.

Rastogi mentioned that India is really becoming a very interesting manufacturing hub for a lot of these medical devices and consumables. He added that the next 10 years could see the emergence of four or five large companies.

(With inputs from Bloomberg)

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