Nine Years And Counting

Global PE major TA Associates, which completed nine years in India, is focussed on making more investments here, particularly in the areas of technology, and consumer and financial services.

- Deepti Chaudhary

INTEREST FROM GLOBAL PRIVATE EQUITY (PE) investors is not new to India. They invested a record $34 billion in the country last year. With big global PE funds pouring in more money—a sign of growing confidence in India’s growth story— experts are hopeful that the momentum will continue in 2019.

TA Associates is one of the aforementioned believers in the India story. It has been investing here for the past nine years. The firm, regulated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, has an investment spread of nearly $650 million across 13 firms. Its portfolio includes payments company BillDesk, consumer electronics company Micromax, TCNS Clothing, which owns the women’s wear brand “W”, and broadband services provider ACT, among others.

In an interview with Fortune India, Dhiraj Poddar, 44, managing director, TA Associates, talks about the PE firm’s strategy of investing in India. Edited excerpts:

Tell us about your investment thesis.

We are a late-stage growth equity investor. Our investing approach is flexible; often, we are providers of liquidity to early-round investors and founders. Also, we fund the business in its pursuit of organic or inorganic growth. We are comfortable taking minority and majority stakes. That’s the flexibility we’ve always enjoyed, and is in line with our investment style across the world.