 "initial public offerings")
Japan's SoftBank Investment Advisers and US-based JP Morgan hosted a meeting between large mutual fund houses and 10 unicorns, including Swiggy, and Unacademy, which are keen on going public within 3 years, sources said.
Mamaearth, Lenskart, Acko, Meesho, ElasticRun and InMobi also participated in the meeting held in Bengaluru on August 3 and 4.
"Indian public asset managers, with USD 250 billion under management, met with the leadership of unicorn startups that are eyeing a possible stock market listing in the next 2-3 years. The first such interaction, hosted by SoftBank and JP Morgan, was aimed at building a better rapport between domestic mutual funds and startups well ahead of the latter's IPO plans," a source privy to the meeting said.
Fourteen Domestic Institutional Investors (DIIs) such as HDFC MF, Axis MF, Mirae, ICICI Prudential MF and UTI flew down to Bengaluru for the meeting, the source added.
"The meeting was basically to help unicorns better understand public market investors," the source said.
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The interaction also comes at a time when some of the early digital IPOs (Initial Public Offerings) such as Zomato and Paytm have come under pressure following a steep fall in stock price. The market values of listed digital startups have fallen sharply globally, too, tracking inflationary pressures and rising interest rates.
When contacted, SoftBank Investment Advisers managing partner and India head Sumer Juneja said DIIs are a vital constituent of the Indian stock market, and they will only get more important with time.
"As more tech companies go public and become a more significant part of the indices, it is essential for these two constituents to build a relationship and understand each other better," Juneja said.
SoftBank, through SoftBank Vision Fund, has invested USD 15 billion in India of which around USD 11 billion has been invested in the last five years.
"The participation of the top mutual funds indicated the high public investor interest in the growth of tech platforms and the rising heft of digital GDP," the source said.
SoftBank is the biggest investor in India's digital economy, while JP Morgan has been working with several internet startups in their quest to go public.
(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
