Amadeus Capital sets its sight on India, eyes marketplaces, ed-tech and fintech firms

By Taslima Khan

NEW DELHI:UK-based global technology investor Amadeus Capital is betting on marketplaces, edtech, fintech and product-based SaaS (software as a service) companies in India. Amadeus recently announced its first direct investment in the country, in maketplace IndiaMart.

India investments will be made from the Amadeus IV Digital Prosperity Fund, which made its first close in July last year at $80 million, and is focused on emerging markets such as Brazil, SouthEast Asia and Africa, said Bhavani Rana of the investor's India unit.

"In 2014, we decided to look at investing in emerging markets to take advantage of the digital prosperity in such markets that is coming from mobile and smartphone adoption and technologies built around them," Rana said. "The next set of users who come online will be from emerging markets and startups will create services directly on mobile platforms, without being an extension of PC-based services, like in the west."


For India, Amadeus is not eyeing a fixed number of investments but early growth stage companies where the product-market fit is well established, the average investment size being $5-7 million.

"We are particularly interested in founders who have survived multiple waves of slowdown and correction," said Rana, who expects valuations to be lower than last year.

"The west has corrected and so it will be for India too."