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SoftBank ropes in Sumer Juneja to head its investments in India


MUMBAI | BENGALURU: Japanese investment giant SoftBank has roped in Norwest Venture Partners’ Sumer Juneja as its country head for India, ending an over-three-year search for an executive to lead investments in one of its highly lucrative markets, two people familiar with the development said.

Juneja will take on the role at SoftBank from his previous position as director at the US-headquartered venture capital’s India office, which he joined in 2009.

Juneja did not respond to calls and text messages sent by ET.

As part of Norwest Venture Partners, Juneja first led an investment in Swiggy in 2015 and serves on the fooddelivery firm’s board as an observer. He also serves on the board of northeast-based snack maker Kishlay Foods.

Interestingly, SoftBank had initiated talks with Swiggy for a possible investment in November last year. The Japanese fund also has held several such conversations with Swiggy’s rival, Zomato, starting May 2018 but has yet to finalise its investment in India’s food technology sector. Juneja has also been actively involved in NVP’s investments in Quikr and the National Stock Exchange while also having served on the boards of Bharti Infratel, IRB Infrastructure Developers, IL&FS Transportation Networks, among others.

Prior to NVP, Juneja worked with Goldman Sachs in London and Hong Kong as an investment banking analyst, driving several merger and acquisition processes including financial analysis, due diligence and public and private buy-side and sell-side transactions. His experience at Goldman included that during the acquisition of Paladin Resources by Talisman Energy, acquisition of Domnick Hunter by Parker Hannifin and advising Thames Water, a UK water utility, on the divestiture of its international assets valued at over $2 billion.

SoftBank has so far invested about $8 billion in the Indian startup ecosystem and has been skimming the market for more bets across vertical ecommerce, logistics and food technology among others even as it is closing in on several new and renewed investments in the country. ET was the first to report in October that the $100-billion SoftBank Vision Fund was evaluating investments worth $200-250 million each in baby and mother care portal FirstCry and logistics player Delhivery. The investments would peg FirstCry and Delhivery at over $800 million and around $1.2 billion, respectively, ET had reported.

SoftBank is also in talks to double down its investments in the hyperlocal space with a $120-150 million infusion in existing portfolio Grofers, ET reported last month.

SoftBank has a separate team in India headed by former Bharti Airtel chief executive Manoj Kohli for renewable energy unit SB Energy, a threeway joint venture with Foxconn and the Bharti Group.

SoftBank’s hunt for new bets in India come about three months after it exited Flipkart, India’s largest ecommerce company, in a transaction that delivered returns of over
$4 billion. It has now turned its eye on the next wave of Indian consumer Internet startups and has held multiple discussions with startups as it looks to broaden its portfolio in the country.





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