Juan Sabater, partner of Chicago-based Valor Equity Partners, is a celebrated name in the international startup industry. And, now it seems, the Indian startup industry has caught Juan’s fancy as he is currently considering investing his own money in Indian startups working on innovative technologies and ideas. In fact, Juan has already started his work and met a few aspiring entrepreneurs and startups in Delhi, NCR, Chandigarh, Ranchi and Kolkata.
Being a private equity firm, Valor Equity Partners has invested capital in some big names like Tesla, Renovate America, SpaceX and Addepar. Prior to Valor Equity Partners, Juan was working in Goldman Sachs’ Investment Banking division in the capacity of its Managing Director.
Apparently, Juan’s meetings with the Indian entrepreneurs and startups during his Indian visit went really well and left him extremely impressed with their innovative ideas and vigour and passion to grow. Seeing their vision, passion and spirit, Juan then made a decision to invest in the Indian startups in the near future in his own personal capacity.
Chandigarh based Nasscom member companies got an opportunity to meet Juan and share their insights in the work and the progress that the region was experiencing due to constant advancement in technology. They even talked to Juan about some of the obstacles that they were currently facing in the region.
Some of the obstacles currently being faced by Indian startups are like defining their market and product, attracting capital, difficulty in building a team to create technology and scaling issues.
According to Juan, the best way the Indian startup industry could overcome most of these issues is by hand holding and building an ecosystem for the growth of the startups. There is an urgent need for the industry to come together and coordinate with each other or build themselves a platform where all these problems can be escalated and solved.
If Juan does invest in the Indian startup industry, it would be a real high for the industry and its image abroad.
