This NRI Investor Believes There is No Better Time To Invest In India Reddi believes that startups today are staring at opportunities and can very well absorb huge capital after having learned the lesson the hard way

With all the digital initiatives, such as E-KYC, UPI, digital locker undertaken by the government in the last few years, Sashi Reddi, Managing Partner, SRI Capital believes that it is one of the best times to invest in India.

"I think there is no better time for people to start companies and fully leverage India's digital stack and that is where I am looking for opportunities to invest," he added.

In terms of scope, Reddi, who has spent most of his time with the enterprise tech industry, is now betting high on Indian consumer focus start-ups. He says in a country like ours, where bank's customer onboarding process has seen a shift from being naught to a point where everything can be done so easily, one can only imagine avenues that will open with the adoption of digitalization.

The US-based investor here was referring to Indian banks that allow customers to open a bank account with their mobile-based application.

Apart from the opportunity, there are a lot of mature or second/ third-time entrepreneurs in the market along with a good amount of venture capital funds, Reddi added justifying his positive outlook in the India start-up ecosystem.

With such avenues and access to capital, he feels entrepreneurs can afford to make mistakes and with time, build sustainable businesses.

Talking about capital dumping, he said, we went through a period of two years, where suddenly a lot of money came in and big cheques were written to companies that were not ready to absorb that kind of capital. What transpired was not surprising, as one would expect a lot of people got burnt and pulled back creating a shortage of funds.

But, presently, he opines that the industry has very well learned its lesson and the difference now is that the opportunity is bigger and the startups can very well absorb that kind of capital.

On asking why VCs are not active investors in the social impact space, he shared it is difficult for the investors to sustain in such segments. However, with certain sectors such low-cost health care, Reddi thinks VCs can fund start-ups as they are mostly interested in innovations that are low in cost.

Meanwhile, to get some fundraising tips from Sashi Reddi watch the attached video.

(Interview by Aashika Jain)