Google creating India team for local leg of global growth equity investment arm

Tech giant Google is creating a team in India for its global growth equity investment arm Google Capital as it seeks to tap the opportunities in the country's startup ecosystem, which is maturing beyond early stage investment opportunities, The Economic Times reported citing a senior executive of the company.

David Lawee, partner at one-year-old Google Capital, told the newspaper that the firm has interviewed several candidates to head the unit in India.

He did not say how much the unit plans to invest in India but observed that in the next three-seven years, nearly 30 per cent of the world's billion-dollar companies will be from India.

Google Capital has a 15-member investment team including four partners.

It has backed 11 firms to date including two India related ventures Freshdesk and Commonfloor. Its other portfolio firms include SurveyMonkey, Auction.com and Glassdoor among others.

The investment unit was formally launched in February 2014 and came as a separate investment platform from Google's venture investment arm Google Ventures.

Google Ventures provides seed, venture and such early-stage funding to companies. It has invested in more than 225 companies, including Uber (which expanded to India two years ago) among others.

(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)