SAIF Partners Bullish on funding opportunities in India

04 March 2006

Ravi C Adusumalli, general partner and India head, SB Asia Infrastructure Fund, talks about the private equity fund's India operations in an interview with
Venkatachari Jagannathan

Chennai: The burgeoning consumer economy has made India as a prime market for theinvesting community. One of the private equity fund SB Asia Infrastructure Fund (SAIF) Partner has started investing in Indian companies out of its $1 billion corpus. The fund is focused on India, China and South Korea.

"As a firm, we believe in fostering innovation and are looking to invest in growth stage companies with strong management teams that are fiscally responsible. In the last five years, we have strengthened our focus on the Indian market and have put a strong local team in place," says Ravi C Adusumalli, general partner and India head, SAIF Partners.

According to him SAIF Partners make privately negotiated equity or equity-linked investments mainly in technology, media and entertainment, telecom and financial services companies based in the Asia Pacific region.

Thirty-year old Adusumalli is a graduate in economics and government from Cornell. Prior to joining SAIF Partners, he was an associate partner with Mobius Venture Capital, an early stage venture capital firm in the Silicon Valley. He has also worked with Credit Suisse First Boston as an associate and with Wasatch Funds, a mutual fund specialising in small cap and micro cap companies listed on US and international exchanges.