Norwest Venture Partners, a large and well-known international venture capital fund, recently raised a new fund of $650 million. These millions will be used globally, but primarily focus on investment-worthy companies in India. Promod Haque, Managing Partner of Norwest explains in an interview why the fund is looking for the next TCS or Infosys in India.

•How is India shaping up as a destination for VCs, when compared to China in particular?

We are extremely bullish on the investment landscape in India. We believe there are tremendous opportunities in the local consumer markets in India. Business models for the Internet have been well proven in the US, and we have also seen these models succeed in China. As penetration of broadband and wireless increases, we think the Indian market will mimic China.

There are also investment opportunities for mid-stage product companies in India, and of course, hybrid investments—we already have more than 20 hybrid or cross-border investments in our portfolio.

• There is a lot of talk about finding the next TCS, Infosys or Wipro from the current pool of IT midcaps we have. Do you believe there are more such big success stories?

We do believe that there will be such big success stories among smaller IT companies, but the markets are still based in the US. Therefore, we’ve found that the smart companies in India that want to aggressively target

global markets choose to work with VC firms that can open doors for them, and expand their markets globally.

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