Five Indians have found place among the world’s top 25 venture capitalists who have been featured in the latest edition of the GCV Powerlist.
Shankar Chandran, Managing Director, Samsung Catalyst Fund, who shared the ranking with his colleague Francis Ho for the fifth position in the list, is top ranked among Indians.
Rajeev Misra, Global Head of SoftBank Vision Fund shared the overall 10th position in the list with his colleague Marcelo Claure.
Nagraj Kashyap, Head, M12 – formerly Microsoft Ventures – was ranked 12th, Arvind Purushotham, who leads the venture Citi Ventures was ranked 21st and Girish Nadkarni who is the President of Total Carbon Neutrality Ventures was ranked 22nd in the list released on Wednesday.
Also Read
GCV, the media publication and data provider for the corporate venture capital industry, compiles its annual “Powerlist” of the top 100 heads of corporate venturing units out of more than 2,000 that it covers globally.
Jeffrey Li, Managing Partner at Tencent Investment tops the overall list this year, followed by Maggie Wu of Alibaba Innovation Ventures, Amy Banse of Comcast Ventures, and Larry Illg of Prosus Ventures – formerly Naspers Ventures.
Many Indians have found place in the overall list featuring 100 venture capitalists.
Writing a “Foreword” to the report, Young Sohn, Samsung Electronics’ Corporate President and Chief Strategy Officer, said that lesson from past recessions suggest that those who have survived downturns, even emerged stronger, benefitted from investing in the right innovation.
“Even as Covid-19 has greatly impacted our economy, it has revealed immense opportunities to not only grow but also meet critical needs. For example, the benefits of telehealth have been long acknowledged, especially for rural areas, but in an industry that still relies on pagers and fax machines, have predominantly remained analogue.
“Since March, however, virtual checkups have become standard, with non-urgent virtual care increasing by more than 4,000 per cent according to one study,” he said.
Mass adoption is happening across technologies, from video conferencing to cashless payment to digital services, said Sohn who is also the GCV Leadership Society’s Chairman.
“The pandemic didn’t change the rules – agility and creativity are more crucial than ever. Instead, it has created a crucible where some technologies will flourish, and it’s our job to decipher which those are,” he said.
Also Read: China-Africa tensions rise despite huge investments
