“I think we need to get a level-playing field between Indian and foreign investors. I am not against foreign investors getting advantages...But, it cannot be at disadvantage for the Indian investors,” said NR Narayana Murthy, co-founder of Infosys, while discussing how to stimulate Indian capital to enter the start-up sector.
“Today, it’s not a level-playing field. It is in favour of foreigners investing in India,” he said, speaking at the annual flagship event of TiE Mumbai . Murthy said only 10-12 per cent of the total funding that is being invested in India comes from the country.
He said while we are all for competition and want to welcome foreign money, our policies have not encouraged Indian entrepreneurs to get more funding.
Pension funds
“In fact, we have requested the government to allow pension funds to invest in venture funds...We have requested them to make it more attractive for people to invest in venture capital funds.,” he said.
Murthy said that moving forward, he hopes the government will make it more easier for Indian investors to put money in. Murthy also spoke about how times have changed, pointing out how attrition now is “much more than what we faced.” However, he said the ambitions are also higher these days.
“It took us 12 years to go public. But now, neither you are happy nor satisfied. You want to go public even if you are not making profits. So your ambitions are higher, your challenges are much tougher than we faced. You are better warriors than we (were)”, he said.
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