Google Capital, internet company Google’s growth equity arm, is looking to open an office in India and is currently interviewing candidates to manage it, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday.
Details concerning the timeframe in which the office will be established, the size of the funds it will be working from, or where it will be based have not been disclosed but the office, Google Capital’s first outside the US, will primarily target India-based companies and will be free to invest in any sector.
David Lawee, a partner at Google Capital, told the WSJ: “It makes a lot of sense to focus on India right now,” citing India’s base of internet users, which outnumbers those in the US, and the offerings being initiated by local entrepreneurs to serve that market.
So far, Google Capital’s investments in India have been limited to real estate listings platform CommonFloor, in which it invested an undisclosed amount in January this year.
However, the unit’s interest could well have been sparked by the activity of Japan-based telecommunications and internet company SoftBank, which has invested significant sums in India-based Snapdeal, Housing.com and OlaCabs in recent months.