Varsha Tagare is managing director of Qualcomm Ventures India, based in Mumbai, having been promoted from senior director in February 2017.
As a result, she now oversees the Qualcomm Ventures India fund, a $150m corporate venture capital fund for the country and cross-border investments, and manages investments in Borqs, Capillary Technologies, Housejoy, MapMyIndia, MindTickle, Portea, PropTiger, Ridlr, Reverie Language Technology, YourStory and ZopNow. She also worked closely on Tonbo Imaging and the fund is also invested in Attune, Fab Hotels, MoveInSync and Ninjacart.
Despite her successes, she said she landed in CVC by accident. “My passion after college was chip design. I was fortunate to work on leading edge technology at Intel Corporation and was granted two patents in microprocessor design. During the design process, I became curious to understand whether software developers ever used any of the leading microprocessor features. I started helping software developers with product strategy and became a business sponsor for Intel Capital investment. I enjoyed the investment activity and joined Intel Capital in 2007.”
At the end of 2012 she left Intel Capital to join Qualcomm.
She added: “The VC and CVC industry was in its nascent stage in India when I started investing in that region. Technology deals were few and far between and getting co-investors for those deals was a huge challenge. It has now changed for the better in India with a relatively stronger technology dealflow. In emerging geographies like India, there is a strong collaboration between CVCs, VCs, incubators and universities. Mature geographies could benefit from a stronger collaboration, especially in deals where the incumbent financial VCs do not encourage CVC participation.”
