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Why Uber’s investor Pishevar is bullish on Indian start-ups

Silicon Valley’s super angel investor in Uber who campaigned against Trump’s Presidency has expressed happiness about India seeing a return of its tech entrepreneurs from the US.

Shervin Pishevar, the Tehran born executive chairman of Hyperloop One and co-founder of US based venture capital firm Sherpa Capital told that he is bullish about India and plans to start investing in Indian companies this year.

Pishevar who was born in Tehran, had to escape as a child to the US with his family after the 1979 Iranian Revolution.

“I am very excited about (Indian start-up ecosystem). We want to begin to invest in Indian companies as well. We have been investing in Indian-American entrepreneurs for a long time. Some of them are incredible entrepreneurs and some of them are moving (back) here,” Pishevar said in an interaction with on an India visit.

His statements come at a time when Indian workers on an H1B status in the US are a worried lot and IT offshoring companies expect a lot of hiring of local citizens to keep their US operations afloat.

He gave an example of the head of professional networking firm Linkedin in India, Akshay Kothari who moved back to India. “I first met Akshay at an Indian restaurant in Palo Alto many years ago and he showed me his app. Now he is the head of Linkedin for all over India and he has moved back here. So that trend of people migrating back to their birth place is really interesting,” he said.

Pishevar lauded Indian companies such as Uber’s competitor Ola which has received investment from Japan’s Softbank. “There are so many incredible entrepreneurs and companies like Ola and others that are growing to massive scale. I have a very long term view of India. I don’t want to invest in for short term returns,” he said that the vision would be to invest for 10-20 years.

Campaigned against Trump’s Presidency

Pishevar has invested in over 100 companies as an angel. He co-founded VC firm Sherpa Capital in March 2013. He also tweeted that he would fund a campaign for California to become a free nation after Donald Trump won US-presidency.

Ironically, Trump has included Iran in his countries for travel ban, which has impacted a lot of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs with roots to the nation.

In contrast to Pishevar, rival super angel investors such as Peter Thiel campaigned in favor of Donald Trump to become president. Pishevar’s Sherpa Capital is an investor in US-based ride hailing firm Uber, logistics service provider Shyp and road safety analytics firm Zendrive among others.

Source: Money Control