The Hindu Business Line : WestBridge sees growth in hotel, branded healthcare sectors

WESTBRIDGE Capital Partners, the $350-million India-focussed venture fund, sees rapid growth in branded healthcare, consumer Internet, and wireless telecommunication applications. The domestic market for retail and travel and tourism is also set to grow very fast, according to Mr K. P. Balaraj, Managing Director.

WestBridge, which has invested $150 million of its $350-million fund, expects to invest all of its corpus within the next 18-24 months. "We are talking to a number of companies and in the next two-three months we will close two-three investments and will continue to invest at the rate of five-six investments per year," he said.

WestBridge announced a Rs 25-crore investment in the Royal Orchid Group, a pre-IPO company in the hotel and tourism industry. "Hotel and tourism are set to be a large fast-growing market and we expect to see more private equity and VC investments in this sector," Mr Balaraj, said. WestBridge says Bangalore is one of the best performing hotel markets in India and even Asia.

WestBridge has invested in ICICI OneSource, Dr Lal's Pathlabs, Indicom global services, AppLabs, and in the pharma services sector. "We are focussed on a high growth domestic market, including branded healthcare, retail consumer Internet, wireless telecom etc." WestBridge will be making investments of $5-10 million, with an expectation of 5-10 times revenue growth in three-five years, post-investment, he said.

Since we enable companies in senior management recruitment in India and abroad, as well as in acquisitions and enable next round of funding, we get good response from companies, according to Mr Balaraj.

"Although we are bullish on four-five sectors, we are looking to fund good management teams," he said, adding that the branded healthcare services sector, consumer Internet market in India, including broad-based portals and new online businesses, and wireless telecom applications and software companies were set to grow fast in the country.

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