NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Friday, December 4, 2015

Omidyar Network, the philanthropic investing firm of billionaire eBay founder, Pierre Omidyar and his wife Pam, plans to invest over $350 million (Rs.2,333 crore) in for-profit ventures and non-profit organisations in India by 2020.

Roopa Kudva, partner at Omidyar said the Silicon Valley-based firm had already invested about $160 million (Rs.1,067 crore) in the country.

Omidyar invests in areas such as consumer internet and mobile, entrepreneurship, financial inclusion, governance and citizen engagement, and property rights. In India, it has invested in ventures such as employability assessment firm Aspiring Minds, train travel tech startup RailYatri.in and online classifieds portal Quikr.

On Thursday, it also released a report about how frontier capital, or early stage risk capital in emerging markets, can be an effective tool for investors to achieve financial returns and social impact.