<div><em><strong>Arshad Khan</strong> traces the investments made by the great Ratan Tata in startups</em><br><br><br>Since his retirement as the chairman of Tata & Sons, Ratan Tata, one of India's most respected businessmen, has donned the new avatar of a venture capitalist. With an estimated personal wealth of around Rs 6,000 crore, he is on an investment spree to help hot startups get established into successful enterprises.</div><div> </div><div>Over the last one year alone, he has bought stakes in 10 companies, mostly e-commerce firms. He also ventured in sectors like automobiles, retail, jewelry and telecom through his personal investment company, RNT Associates. He also has a stake in two new entrants in aviation sector, Air Asia and Vistara. </div><div> </div><div>Domestic startups are also excited about attaching their names with Tata to benefit from his experience of over five decades. Snapdeal’s Kunal Bahl comments, “an investment by a legendary and respected figure like Mr Tata is an excellent validation of our focused strategy on building a long-term enterprise and marks the start of a very important phase for the company.” Tata bought stake in the e-comm giant last year.</div><div> </div><div>Not just domestic startups, even foreign majors are keen to associate themselves with the business tycoon. Xiaomi founder and CEO Lei Ju said, "He (Tata) is one of the most well-respected business leaders in the world. An investment by him is an affirmation of the strategy we have undertaken in India so far."</div><div> </div><div> </div><div>BW|Businessworld makes a list of famous startups where the business honcho has made investment in less than a year. </div><div> </div><div><strong>Snapdeal:</strong> The e-commerce giant became the first destination of post retirement Tata investment. It is believed that tata holds 0.17 per cent stake in the e-tailer, his stake being worth around Rs 21 crore. Founded in 2010 by two IITians, Snapdeal became one of the fastest emerging e-commerce players. Tata’s attachment will prove to be strategic for the firm as it faces high competition from Flipkart and Amazon in the domestic market.</div><div> </div><div><strong>Paytm:</strong> Another e-commerce firm which grabbed the business honcho’s attention, Tata has acquired an undisclosed stakes on March this year in One97 Communications, which owns and operates the Paytm. Initially an online recharge service provider, it rapidly grew into one of the major e-commerce player. </div><div> </div><div><strong>Bluestone:</strong> It is a Bangalore-based online jewelry retailer. In September 2014, Tata made a strategic investment in the e-tailer. On Tata's investment, its co-founder Gaurav Singh Kushwaha said, “an investment by Ratan Tata who has been at the helm of India’s most successful and respected conglomerate is a validation of our approach in building an innovative brand that is disrupting the jewellery market.”</div><div> </div><div><strong>CarDekho</strong>: In February 2105, Tata invested in Girnar Software, a parent company, which owes and operate the online automobiles classifieds website CarDekho.com founded in 2008, the website leads in its segment.</div><div> </div><div><strong>Urban Ladder:</strong> founded in 2012 Urban Ladder is an online furniture retailer which sells wide range of products like bed, sofas, wardrobe etc. At present the website has its presence in 12 cities.It became an interest of Tata in November 2104.</div><div> </div><div><strong>OlaCabs:</strong> the taxi-hailing app OlaCabs is the latest destination of the business tycoon’s personal venture. Founded in 2011 by twp IITians, Olacabs is one of India’s largest aggregator of rental cabs with operations in over 100 cities and 1.5 lakh vehicles registered on its platform is backed by Japan's SoftBank.</div><div> </div><div>What is worth noticing that Tata is not the only stalwart to show interest in the startups. The trend was probably started by Wipro’s chairman Azim Premji in 2006 with his investment firm PremjiInvest. Azim Premji has investments in Myntra and Snapdeal. Narayana Murthy, Infosys co-founder also has a joint venture with Amazon to help small and medium businesses enterprises to go online.</div><div> </div><div> </div>
