Snapdeal founders are helping Taiwanese company to get best deals in Indian startups

Taiwanese electronics maker Foxconn Technology Group is looking to invest in Indian startups and is gaining deep insight into Indian startup ecosystem.

For this, Snapdeal founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal are helping the Taiwanese electronics maker to scout for the best deals in the Indian startup market.

Over a dozen Indian startups met Wen-Hsin (Vincent) Tong, Chairman and Director of investments at FIH Mobile Limited, an investment arm of Foxconn, at the New Delhi office of Snapdeal recently, according to two people with direct knowledge of the initiative.

The meetings were designed as fact-finding missions and were set up for Foxconn to gain a deeper insight in one of the world's most dynamic startup hubs.

"(However) they could potentially lead to investments in these ventures," said the sources who briefed Economic Times on the developments.

Though names of the startups were not known but sources told ET that among those present were several mobile-based ventures that offer on-demand services. "All the startups who met (Tong and Bahl) have raised significant amounts of venture capital funding and several of them are already in talks for a new round of equity financing," one of the persons quoted above told the financial daily.

Foxconn, however, declined to confirm the meetings.

"As a matter of company policy, we do not comment on rumours or speculation. As we have stated in the past, we would consider investments in India if they made commercial sense," a Foxconn technology group spokesperson said in an emailed reply to ET's questionnaire.

Snapdeal also declined to comment on the developments. Foxconn's interest comes at a time when several Asian corporate behemoths are looking to invest in consumer-focused technology startups.

Earlier this month ET had reported that Foxconn was one of the frontrunners to invest in Jasper Infotech, which owns and operates Snapdeal.com.
The Taiwanese manufacturing giant is a contract manufacturer for a number of iconic brands, including Apple, Amazon, Sony and Microsoft.

Strategic investors scouting for investments in India have increased over the last two years. Apart from South Africa's Naspers, which is an investor in India's biggest e-Commerce company Flipkart, others such as SoftBank have promised to invest close to $10 billion in the country.

(Image: Indiatimes)