Expectedly, there was some excitement & some skepticism over the recent acquisition of redBus by Ibibo. My comment on one such recent article "Is the redBus exit really good for the VC ecosystem inIndia?" on StartupCentral is as follows;
My comment:
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What you have said above sounds
(to me) like;
If only the ‘sheer-return achieved
on one exit’ by the VC is looked at in the broader context of ‘performance of
the fund’ as such (disbursed funds?) rather than merely as a nX return on
investment made into that particular company, only then will the overall
picture emerge.
Now, just because you mentioned
200mio USD fund in your article, I wish to know if I can assume that one of the
three VCs (or all three as an average) who disbursed funds of ~200Mio USD
across past 7 years among multiple portfolio companies has hitherto managed
only one attractive return of ~15-20X? (of RedBus) & this sheer return
still doesn’t amount to being anything substantial to the LPs from whom the
200mio fund was raised?
If the answer is yes, I agree with
you that for the Indian VC universe ‘Dilli abhi dhoor hain..’ (loosely translates as ~miles to go before resting on ones' laurels...)
Of course I’d also be cautiously
optimistic when I say that if only the VCs that invested into RedBus used a
similar good-sense & judgement while identifying, nurturing the other
portfolio companies within this 200mio fund, then it is likely they’d still see
some more good exists, including some from an IPO even.
Overall I guess there’s some
traction & that aint bad.
