Russian conglomerate firm Sistema Joint-Stock Financial Corporation (JSFC) is in process of establishing a wholly-owned Indian subsidiary to deepen its engagement within the Indian start-up ecosystem. The upcoming ancillary is likely to offer hands-on business execution assistance to local e-Commerce, fintech, digital analytics, e-Tailing and lifestyle start-ups.
The new Sistema India subsidiary will “handhold local start-ups under its new Scalerator platform through a host of services, including go-to-market strategies, solutions to swiftly scale up business and even the support of a back-up operations team if needed”, reported business daily ET.
As per media reports, Sistema’s global venture capital team is in India to identify potential start-ups in Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad and Kochi for lending support under the initiative, which will be registered in Singapore after completion of the legalities.
The Russian biggie had floated a $50 million proprietary venture capital fund ‘Sistema Asia Fund’ in February of 2016 which currently offers financing to start-ups operating in technology and consumer-tech domains.
Furthering the venture capital fund, the start-ups that sign up for the Scalerator programme may also qualify for financing from the Sistema Asia Fund, which may double for Indian ventures to $100 million by early 2018.
Indian telecom operator giant Reliance Communications (RCom) announced its acquiring plans for the Indian telecom unit of Sistema in an all-stock deal in 2016. It was after this that the Russian conglomerate geared up to explore the Indian start-ups financing market and tap emerging opportunities.
