Chindia TMT Dialogue Conference 2018 concludes successfully

Chindia TMT Dialogue Conference 2018 was recently held in New Delhi, where the focus was on the private sector that has seen a rise in foreign investment in India, especially from China. Last year, Chinese companies such as Alibaba, Fosun, Baidu, and Tencent put in US$5.2 billion in 30 Indian startups.

Investments in the first two months of 2018 have nearly touched $1 billion, indicating that the Chinese firms mean serious business in India. Players such as Flipkart, Paytm, Ola, Hike, Ibibo, Gaana and Zomato are among the major recipients of the Chinese funding. On the one hand, while increased Chinese investments in India is a clear indicator of the Indian opportunity; on the other hand, India needs to ensure that it is not surrendering strategic interests in the region.

The fact is China and India have remarkable similarities in terms of consumer spending behaviour, on the market-scale it is the Chinese model that Indian entrepreneurs are finding success. Given the recent success of investments, FDI from China could potentially grow by 4-5 times in the next five years and Chinese companies could very soon become one of India's top foreign direct investors.

In the Chindia TMT Dialog Conference 2018, a panel of venture capitalists sat together to discuss the investment synergies between India and China. The panel included Tej Kapoor, MD, Fosun RZ Capital India; Tarun Davda, MD, Matrix Partners; Karan Mohla, Managing Partner, IDG India; Vaibhav Agarwal, Managing Partner, Lightspeed Ventures, and moderator Li Jian, Founder & CEO - ZDream VC.

The panellists expressed their views that Chinese businessmen target the Indian market, but Indian investors do not have access to Chinese entrepreneurs and that China has large visions for India. This shows how the investors were impressed by the way startups executed their activities rather than the nature of the product itself.

The future of cross-border investment synergies between India and China look brighter, and it was highly visible from the conversation how there are still major gaps to be covered.